Awards
- Winner of John Porter Memorial Book Prize, Canadian Sociology & Anthropology Association 2002 (Canada)
- Winner of Sir John A. Macdonald Prize, Canadian Historical Association 2002 (Canada)
Overview
Inspired by recent developments in social theory and based on extensive archival research, this book provides a systematic analysis of the developing knowledge capacities of the state in Victorian Canada. No government can intensively administer citizens about whom it knows nothing. The centralization of knowledge in the form of official statistics was an important dimension of state formation. The census of population was the leading project for the production of social intelligence. ""The Politics of Population"" provides a detailed account of the political and social context in which census-making developed in Canada. It deals with census-making as a political project, investigating its place in and impact on party politics and ethnic, religious, and sectional struggles. It also looks closely at census-making as an administrative practice, identifying the main census managers and outlining the organization of five attempts at census-making between 1842 and 1850, before following in detail how census-making finally unfolded between 1852 and 1871. Curtis examines parliamentary debate and governmental reports, but he also follows census enumerators into the field and traces how what they saw was worked up into ""official statistics"". Theoretically, the manuscript engages in a critical dialogue with work in the history of statistics, studies of state formation, social studies of scientific knowledge, and work in the field of governmentality.
Full Product Details
Author: Bruce Curtis
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
Imprint: University of Toronto Press
Dimensions:
Width: 16.00cm
, Height: 3.40cm
, Length: 23.70cm
Weight: 0.734kg
ISBN: 9780802048530
ISBN 10: 0802048536
Pages: 400
Publication Date: 09 March 2001
Audience:
College/higher education
,
Professional and scholarly
,
Undergraduate
,
Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Out of Print
Availability: Out of stock
Reviews
'I cannot recommend this book too highly. Reading The Politics of Population is a most rewarding experience; I learned a lot from it. This book is the product of mature reflection and prodigious research.' -- David Levine Canadian Journal of Sociology Online
'I cannot recommend this book too highly. Reading The Politics of Population is a most rewarding experience; I learned a lot from it. This book is the product of mature reflection and prodigious research.' -- David Levine
Author Information
Bruce Curtis is a professor of Sociology and of History at Carleton University.
