What, if anything, makes Canada's political identity unique? Pollsters can measure values, but they cannot explain how these values arose over time, why they changed, or how people have attempted to make sense of them within a changing social and political environment. By examining the history of political ideas in Canada, we can better understand why Canada takes the shape that it does. In this book, Katherine Fierlbeck looks at the legacy of ideas taken from (or shaped in reaction to) the nations that have been most influential to Canada's development: the United Kingdom and the United...

Contemporary Canadian political thought is fresh, provocative, and ubiquitous. But how can we explain the popularity of the present within the context of the past? The premise of this book is that Canada's intellectual heritage is disappearing from the consciousness of its citizens. For contemporary undergraduates there is no one source in print that presents an historical survey of Canadian political thought. Indeed, many undergraduates are never introduced to even the most iconic figures in political thought in this country, such as C.B. Macpherson, Kari Levitt, or George Grant. And for...