Professor Constance Backhouse’s recently published edited collection, Royally Wronged: The Royal Society of Canada and Indigenous Peoples (McGill-Queens University Press) and Professor Craig Forcese’s edited collection, Top Secret Canada: Understanding the Canadian Intelligence and National Security Community (University of Toronto Press) have both been named to The Hill Times’ 100 Best Books in 2021.
Royally Wronged, which Professor Backhouse co-edited with Cynthia E. Milton (University of Victoria), Margaret Kovach (University of British Columbia) and Adele Perry (University of Manitoba), explores how scholars of the Royal Society of Canada have historically been complicit in the marginalization of Indigenous knowledge. Collecting essays primarily from current Royal Society of Canada members, the book explores how the Society’s membership – historically made up overwhelmingly of white men – helped to shape Canadian knowledge systems, rooting the production of ideas and policies in colonialism, and leading to the destruction of Indigenous communities. Through its examination of academia’s complicity in enabling white settler privilege, Royally Wronged asks difficult questions about how modern academics can move meaningfully toward reconciliation.
Top Secret Canada, meanwhile, is the first book to offer a comprehensive study of the Canadian intelligence community, its different parts, and how it functions as a whole. Edited by Professor Forcese, alongside Stephanie Carvin (Carleton University) and Thomas Juneau (uOttawa, Graduate School of Public and International Affairs), the book collects essays by the country’s foremost experts on law, foreign policy, intelligence, and national security. With its rich exploration of the most pressing issues of national security – arguably the most important responsibility of any democratic government – Top Secret Canada is an essential resource for anyone seeking to understand Canada’s intelligence community and the challenges it faces.
The Hill Times annually publishes its list of the previous year’s top 100 books. This year’s list features books covering Canadian politics, Indigenous issues, the pandemic, and many more fascinating topics. Professor Yan Campagnolo’s recent book, Behind Closed Doors: The Law and Politics of Cabinet Secrecy (UBC Press) was also named to this year’s list. You can read more about that here.
And click here to see the full list of books from 2021.
Congratulations to Professor Backhouse and Professor Forcese!