As a way to celebrate our anniversary, Acquisitions Editor Randy Schmidt reached out to fifty UBC Press authors and asked them to talk about their favourite UBC Press book. This is what we heard.

Written by Ken Carty

The Brenda and David McLean series is a treasure chest of Canadian studies – and Tina Loo’s book Moved by the State is the crown jewel of the collection. Exploring the activities of the state as it sought to ‘improve’ the life of people in five different marginal communities of postwar Canada, Loo reveals how the members of real communities responded to the efforts of liberal outsiders’ attempts to transform them into participating citizens of the modern world. With striking lessons about the power and capacity of the state come vivid life stories of those caught up in these processes; sometimes as actors, sometimes as objects. Reflecting on the experiences of both challenges us to think about what kind of Canada we want, and how we might go about creating it. There can be no better guide than this splendid book.

Ken Carty is a professor emeritus of Political Science at UBC. He chaired the Publications Board at UBC Press from 1990–2009.