Adam Shortt began teaching political economy at Queen's University in the late 1880s. His theories attracted students and faculty who were interested in applying the new tenets of economics and political science to questions of Canadian public policy. The concerns of the group that formed around Shortt were broad and self-consciously cumulative, a perspective promoted particularly by Shortt's colleague and successor O.D. Skelton. The group encouraged reassessment of the role of the social scientist in the university and society, and analysed contentious economic and political questions of the day. Addressing economic policies such as industrialization, foreign investment, labour-business relations, and prairie settlement, they examined the political and governmental ramifications of economic problems, concentrating on the role of political parties, the broad role of government, the place of the public service, and ethnic, class, and regional political relations.

Ferguson demonstrates that Shortt, Skelton, Clark, and Mackintosh clearly argued on behalf of the new liberalism, emphasizing individual rights and positive government. He suggests that their ideas reveal an intellectual position which differed from the imperialist and continentalist alternatives that dominated Canadian thinking at the time.

Barry Ferguson is a Professor of History and currently Duff Roblin Professor of Manitoba Government at the University of Manitoba. His work is in political ideas in Canada, particularly liberalism and federalism, as well as provincial politics and government.

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"An intellectual biography of an extraordinary group of Queen's University scholars with particular reference not only to their motivations, concerns, and influence, but also their place in Canadian thought and social science ... An indispensable contribution to the history of the early twentieth-century university in Canada ... Remaking Liberalism is the work of a fine scholar." Norman Hillmer, Department of History, Carleton University.
"Significant because the author emphasizes a different stream of reformism in Canada than has been written about recently and indeed argues for an alteration in the very terms of debate ... It is clearly written and the chapter setting out the lives and careers of the actors is extremely useful in giving the abstract ideas some flesh and blood." Doug Owram, Department of History, University of Alberta.