Frank Underhill was an outspoken public intellectual, whose charged career as a university historian is reflected in this collection of essays on Canada's political history, covering the Family Compact to the government of Louis St. Laurent. Witty, energetic, and full of wonderfully vibrant rhetorical flourish, these highly readable essays are part of an overall oeuvre that breathed new life into Canadian history and politics.

Frank H. Underhill (1889-1971) was a Canadian historian, political theorist, and activist. He was a professor at the University of Toronto, the University of Saskatchewan, and Carleton University, and a founder of the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation, the forerunner of the NDP. His illustrious but contentious career included a near dismissal from the University of Toronto for his anti-imperialist beliefs, a case that would become a landmark in the history of
academic freedom in Canada. The Wynford edition is introduced by Kenneth Dewar, professor of history at Mount Saint Vincent University.