A concise, elegant survey of a complex aspect of Canadian history, A Short History of the State in Canada examines the theory and reality of governance within Canada’s distinctive political heritage: a combination of Indigenous, French, and British traditions, American statism and anti-statism, and diverse, practical experiments and experiences.

E.A. Heaman takes the reader through the development of the state in both principle and practice, examining Indigenous forms of government before European contact; the interplay of French and British colonial institutions before and after the Conquest of New France; the creation of the nineteenth-century liberal state; and, finally, the rise and reconstitution of the modern social welfare state. Moving beyond the history of institutions to include the development of political cultures and social politics, A Short History of the State in Canada is a valuable introduction to the topic for political scientists, historians, and anyone interested in Canada’s past and present.

E.A. Heaman teaches history at McGill University and is the author of Tax, Order, and Good Government: A New Political History of Canada, 1867-1917.

E.A. Heaman's profile page

‘For Canadian historians, this is an important book…. It is conceptually brilliant, interpreting the material in ways that are always stimulating and often novel… It opens up its subject like never before and for that it is a most welcome volume.’

Canadian Historical Review, vol 97:03:2016

‘Heaman has written a useful, lucid history of Canadian governance that gives full weight to the First Nations, the French and English regimes, and modernization.’

Choice Magazine vol 53:08:2016