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.
Find a copy here.
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 John Meehan
About the Book
On September 30, the book Chretien and the World: Canadian Foreign Policy, from 1993 to 2003, edited by Graham Centre Program Coordinator Jack Cunningham and Director John Meehan, was formally launched. The launch was at the Aga Khan Museum, as part of the 2025 Canadian International Council / Couchiching Conference, and featured remarks by the editors and a conversation between M. Chretien and his onetime aide Peter Donolo, followed by sales of copies signed by M. Chretien, who received the first copy of the book off the press.
The book is the product of two online workshops and a live conference in September of 2022 featuring papers by scholars as well as participants in Canadian foreign policy during the Chretien era, with M. Chretien himself appearing at the conference dinner. It is the first book-length assessment of Chretien's foreign policy, and features chapters by scholars as well as reflections by former ministers and diplomats. It is part of the C.D. Howe Series in Political History, edited by Professors Robert Bothwell and John English, and is published by the University of British Columbia Press.
Find a copy here.