The lives of professors and students, deans and presidents, their ideas and idiosyncrasies, their triumphs and failures, provide the driving force of Waite's narrative. Avoiding the details of financing, curriculum, and administration that sometimes dominate institutional histories, Waite focuses on the men and women who were the blood of the university and who established its traditions and ethos.

Halifax in peace and war is basic to Dalhousie's history, as is its relations with other colleges and universities in Nova Scotia. Waite sets all this out, placing Dalhousie's development within the larger Nova Scotian context.