Publications
C.D. Howe Series
in Canadian Political History
Series editors: Robert Bothwell and John English
This series offers fresh perspectives on Canadian political history and public policy from over the past century. Its purpose is to encourage scholars to write and publish on all aspects of the nation's political history, including the origins, administration, and significance of economic policies; the social foundations of politics and political parties; transnational influences on Canadian public life; and the biographies of key public figures. In doing so, the series fills large gaps in our knowledge about recent Canadian history and makes accessible to a broader audience the background necessary to understand contemporary public-political issues.
The series originated with a grant from the C.D. Howe Memorial Foundation and is further supported by the Bill Graham Centre for Contemporary International History. For a list of publications in this series, please see here.
By Greg Donaghy
About the Book
"I am not afraid to be called a politician," declared Paul Martin Sr., defending his life’s work in politics. "Next to preaching the word of God, there is nothing nobler than to serve one’s fellow countrymen in government." First elected to the House of Commons in 1935, Martin would serve in the cabinets of four prime ministers and run for the Liberal Party leadership three times. This book examines his remarkable career not only as a politician but as a liberal reformer who relentlessly tackled the issues of his day with consummate political skill and gritty determination.
Find a copy here.
By Bill Graham
About the Book
The Call of the World takes us on an unprecedented behind-the-scenes tour of defining moments in recent global history. Bill Graham – Canada’s minister of foreign affairs and then its minister of defence in the tumultuous years following 9/11 – is an insightful and wryly humorous guide, steering readers through an astonishing array of national and international events, explaining important geopolitical relationships, and revealing the human side of global affairs through his deft portraits of world leaders.
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By Patrice Dutil
About the Book
Many Canadians lament that prime ministerial power has become too concentrated since the 1970s. Notions of “governments of one” abound, as if this is somehow a new phenomenon. This book contradicts this view by demonstrating how prime ministerial power was in fact centralized from the very beginning of Confederation and that the first three important prime ministers – Macdonald, Laurier, and Borden – channelled that centralizing impulse to adapt to the circumstances they faced.
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By Brendan Kelly
About the Book
Before official bilingualism was established in 1969, francophones were scarce in the Canadian public service. Marcel Cadieux was one of the few, becoming arguably the most important francophone diplomat and civil servant in Canadian history. Brendan Kelly’s insightful, entertaining biography reveals a complex figure.
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By David Webster
About the Book
In 1975, Indonesian forces overran East Timor, just days after it had declared independence from Portugal. Canadian officials knew the invasion was coming and initially endorsed Indonesian rule. The ensuing occupation of the Southeast Asian country lasted twenty-four years. Challenge the Strong Wind recounts the evolution of Canadian government policy toward East Timor from 1975 to its 1999 independence vote.
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Edited by Susan Colbourn and Timothy Andrews Sayle
About the Book
By virtue of resources and technologies Canada is a nuclear nation. But the country does not have the ultimate symbol of nuclear power – a weapons program of its own. Since the first atomic weapon was detonated in 1945, Canadians have debated not only the role of nuclear power in their uranium-rich land but also their country’s role in a nuclear world. The Nuclear North investigates critical questions in these ongoing debates.
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Edited by Patrice Dutil
Much of Canada’s modern identity emerged from the innovative social policies and ambitious foreign policy of Louis St-Laurent’s Liberal government. His extraordinarily creative administration made decisions that still resonate today: on health care, pensions, and housing; on infrastructure and intergovernmental issues; and, further afield, in developing Canada’s global middle-power role in global affairs and resolving the Suez Crisis. Yet St-Laurent remains an enigmatic figure.
Contributors to The Unexpected Louis St-Laurent assess the degree to which he set the policy agenda. They explore the features of his personality that made him effective (or sometimes less so), the changes he wrought on the state apparatus and federal-provincial relations, and the substance of his government’s policies.
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Edited by Brian Bow and Andrea Lane
About the Book
Canadian Foreign Policy, as an academic discipline, is in crisis. Despite its value, CFP is often seen as a “stale and pale” subfield of political science with an unfashionably state-centred focus. Canadian Foreign Policy asks why.
Academics from both inside and around the field were asked “Where do our ideas about CFP come from?” This starting point led to a nuanced exploration of the ways in which scholars come to think of themselves as participating in CFP as an academic project – or not – and what that has meant both for their intellectual trajectory and for the development of the field.
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By Robert Wardhaugh and Barry Ferguson
About the Book
The Rowell-Sirois Commission and the Remaking of Canadian Federalism investigates the groundbreaking inquiry launched to reconstruct the federal system – revealing its impact on the high politics of federal-provincial relations and its legacy for Canadian federalism today.
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Contemporary Canadian Issues
Series editors: John English and Jack Cunningham
Contemporary Canadian Issues is a partnership between the Bill Graham Centre for Contemporary International history and Dundurn Press to bring together the latest scholarship, from inside and outside academe, on current issues of concern to an informed Canadian general readership.
Edited by Jack Cunningham and William Maley
About the Book
Afghanistan is a long way from both Canada and Australia, but from 2001, fate conspired to bring the three countries together. Following the attacks of September 11, 2001, Australia and Canada joined the U.S. and other Western allies in attacking al-Qaeda bases in Afghanistan. Operation Enduring Freedom began on October 4, 2001, but this was only the beginning of a much longer engagement in Afghanistan for both Canada and Australia, with a legacy much more ambiguous than the initial campaign had promised. Australia and Canada in Afghanistan: Perspectives on a Mission offers twelve essays from distinguished experts and decision-makers involved in the war. Wide-ranging in scope, their work offers fresh analyses of the Afghan War and on Australia’s and Canada’s contributions to it.
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Edited by Ramesh Thakur and Jack Cunningham
About the Book
A collection of essays on the war in Iraq; including pieces by Jean Chrétien and John Howard, the prime ministers during the war. When it was declared in 2003, the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq was intensely controversial. While a few of America's partners, like Australia, joined in the war, many, including Canada, refused to take part. However the war in Iraq was viewed at the time, though, it is clear that that war and the war in Afghanistan have had a profound and lasting impact on international relations. Australia, Canada, and Iraq collects essays by fifteen esteemed academics, officials, and politicians, including the prime ministers of Australia and Canada at the time of the war — John Howard and Jean Chretién, respectively. This volume takes advantage of the perspective offered by the decade since the war to provide a clearer understanding of the Australian and Canadian decisions regarding Iraq, and indeed of the invasion itself.
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By Elizabeth Riddell-Dixon
About the Book
The Arctic seabed, with its vast quantities of undiscovered resources, is the twenty-first century’s frontier.
In Breaking the Ice: Canada, Sovereignty and the Arctic Extended Continental Shelf, Arctic policy expert Elizabeth Riddell-Dixon examines the political, legal, and scientific aspects of Canada’s efforts to delineate its Arctic extended continental shelf. The quality and quantity of the data collected and analyzed by the scientists and legal experts preparing Canada’s Arctic Submission for the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf, and the extensive collaboration with Canada’s Arctic neighbours is a good news story in Canadian foreign policy. As Arctic sovereignty continues to be a key concern for Canada and as the international legal regime is being observed by all five Arctic coastal states, it is crucial to continue to advance our understanding of the complex issues around this expanding area of national interest.
Find a copy here.