In the wake of the North American Free Trade Agreement and the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, renowned public intellectual and scholar Stephen Clarkson asks whether North America "exists" in the sense that the European Union has made Europe exist.

Clarkson's rigorous study of the many political and economic relationships that link Canada, the United States, and Mexico answers this unusual question by looking at the institutions created by NAFTA, a broad selection of economic sectors, and the security policies put in place by the three neighbouring countries following 9/11. This detailed, meticulously researched, and up-to-date treatment of North America's transborder governance allows the reader to see to what extent the United States' dominance in the continent has been enhanced or mitigated by trilateral connections with its two continental partners.

An illuminating product of seven years' political-economy, international-relations, and policy research, Does North America Exist? is an ambitious and path-breaking study that will be essential reading for those wanting to understand whether the continent containing the world's most powerful nation is holding its own as a global region.

Christina McCall (1935-2005) was a writer of literary non-fiction who worked a socio-political analyst for Maclean's, Saturday Night, Chatelaine, and the Globe and Mail. Grits, her portrait of the Liberal Party, was acclaimed as "one of the most important Canadian books." With her husband, Stephen Clarkson, she co-authored Trudeau and Our Times, the classic two-volume study of Pierre Elliott Trudeau and his impact on Canadian society and politics, the first volume of which won the Governor General's Literary Award in 1990.

Stephen Clarkson's profile page

• Winner, Seymour Martin Lipset Prize awarded by the American Political Science Association

‘Stephen Clarkson has produced a very impressive work that is not just of the moment, but has been composed over many years and will have an equally long shelf life. In an age of quantity over quality and the tendency to focus on the ‘smallest publishable fragment’, Clarkson has written a magisterial work that almost defies description. ’

Geoff Martin, <i>The Round Table; vol 100 August 2011</i>