S. Chalmers Award for Ontario History. Liberal order framework In the December 2000 issue of the Canadian Historical Review, McKay introduced a new framework for interpreting Canadian history. In "The Liberal Order Framework: A Prospectus for a Reconnaissance of Canadian History", McKay argues that "the category 'Canada' should henceforth denote a historically specific project of rule, rather than either an essence we must defend or an empty homogeneous space we must possess. Canada-as-project can be analyzed as the implantation and expansion over a heterogeneous terrain of a certain politico-economic logic – to wit, liberalism." However, far from simply charting victories along the road to liberal order, McKay's approach demands meticulous attention to points of resistance and struggle that shaped the particular contours of Canadian liberalism. Called "reconnaissance" in reference to its Gramscian inspiration, the strategy is at once anti-presentist in seeking to reconstruct the past in its own terms, and present-minded in linking historical findings to contemporary political concerns and ongoing struggles. The piece has been called "one of the most influential articles ever published in Canadian historiography." According to Carleton University historian A. B. McKillop, McKay's framework has incited "Canadian historians to a degree not witnessed since [J. M. S.] Careless's 'limited identities' article inspired a generation of fledgling social historians in the seventies." The liberal order framework spawned a number critical essays first presented at the McGill Institute for the Study of Canada and subsequently published in 2008 as Liberalism and Hegemony: Debating the Canadian Liberal Revolution. The Underhill Review (Fall 2009) also featured a forum on "Ian McKay and the Liberal Order". And finally, the 2009 annual meeting of the Canadian Historical Association also saw a panel discussion devoted to the framework. It is currently listed as the most cited article ever published in the Canadian Historical Review. McKay has expanded the approach in his multi-volume history of socialism and radicalism in Canada, entitled Realms of Freedom. Serving as the introduction is Rebels, Reds, Radicals: Rethinking Canada's Left History published by Between the Lines Press of Toronto. (It also served as "the inaugural volume in Provocations, a series of concise works advancing broad arguments, written by authors deeply immersed in their fields.") The first volume, Reasoning Otherwise: Leftists And The People's Enlightenment In Canada, 1890-1920, was published in 2008. The second book in the series, Revolution's Iron Gates: The Canadian Left and the Challenge of Modernity, 1921-1956