Political Thought in Canada: An Intellectual History, Katherine Fierlbeck, Peterborough ON: Broadview Press, 2006, pp. 178.

Katherine Fierlbeck's project to provide “a brief exegesis of some of the more important political and philosophical debates in Canada's history” (6) is a difficult one, as she herself notes, because the criteria for determining which thinkers and ideas to include are contested. Fierlbeck selects a rich range of well known and under-theorized thinkers and, more importantly, she historicizes the links between political ideas and events so as to contextualize the development of political thought. Although she recognizes that there is no single school of Canadian thought, the unifying theme of the book is that of national identity.