Moved by the State: Forced Relocation and Making a Good Life in Postwar Canada (Brenda and David McLean Canadian Studies)

From the 1950s to the 1970s, the Canadian government relocated people living in rural and urban communities, often against their will, in order to alleviate the alltoocommon lack of social services and economic opportunities. Moved by the State offers a completely new interpretation of this undertaking, focusing on the bureaucrats and academics who designed and implemented these relocations – and on the larger development project they were pursuing. Tina Loo's finely crafted history reveals the optimistic belief underpinning postwar relocations: the power of the interventionist state to do good.

Tina Loo is professor of history at the University of British Columbia.