HIST 500 will introduce students to major themes in recent Canadian historical writing, focusing on book-length studies, which let us examine several important aspects of “doing” Canadian history. Books are based on elaborate research programs that feed sustained arguments and interventions into a subfield or theme. To justify the book-length study, an author will demonstrate how their study builds on earlier scholarship, engages the politics of the present, and be explicit about sources, methodology, and conceptual framework. These are all things that graduate students learn about and develop with respect to their own research agendas.