The creation of the Canada–US border in the Pacific Northwest is often presented as a tale of two nations, but beyond the macro-political dynamics is the experience of individuals. Before and After the State examines the imposition of a border across a region that already held a vibrant, highly complex society and dynamic trading networks. Allan McDougall, Lisa Philips, and Daniel Boxberger explore fundamental questions of state formation, social transformation, and the (re)construction of identity to expose how the devices and myths of nation building affect people’s lives.

Allan K. McDougall's profile page

Lisa Philips' profile page

Daniel L. Boxberger's profile page

Allan K. McDougall is a professor emeritus in the Department of Political Science at the University of Western Ontario. He is the author of Policing: The Evolution of a Mandate and John P. Robarts: His Life and Government, winner of a CHOICE book award. Lisa Philips is a professor emerita in anthropology at the University of Alberta. She is the author of Making Their Own: Severn Ojibwe Communicative Practices, numerous periodical articles and book chapters, and coeditor of Theorizing the Americanist Tradition. Daniel L. Boxberger is a professor of anthropology at Western Washington University. He is the author of To Fish in Common: The Ethnohistory of Lummi Indian Salmon Fishing and Native North Americans: An Ethnohistorical Approach, as well as many periodical articles and book chapters.

The authors show that histories on both sides of the border have downplayed pioneering before large-scale western migration.

Western Mariner

After reading this book one may never look at the Pacific Northwest in quite the same way.

British Journal of Canadian Studies