Enlightenment 2.0 has been short-listed for the Donner Prize, which recognizes the best work of public policy in Canada every year. Very different crowd here than the Shaughneesy Cohen prize. The other three books on the short-list are:

• Réinventer le Québec: Douze chantiers à entreprendre by Marcel Boyer and Nathalie Elgrably-Lévy (Éditions Stanké)
• Brave New Canada: Meeting the Challenge of a Changing World by Derek H. Burney and Fen Osler Hampson (McGill-Queen’s University Press)
• Dealing With Losers: The Political Economy of Policy Transitions by Michael J. Trebilcock (Oxford University Press)

Unfortunately I won’t have time to read and review them all this time — results are announced on Wednesday. I get free copies though, so I’m looking forward to plunging in. I am particularly interested in Michael Trebilcock’s — I admire his book The Limits of Freedom of Contract very much, and I often recommend it to students/colleagues (as an exemplar of how one can adopt a broadly “economic” perspective on the world, and yet remain fundamentally humane in one’s orientation).