A Long Way to Paradise traces the evolution of political ideas from 1871 to 1972 to explore British Columbia’s journey to socio-political maturity, answering both why and how British Columbia became Canada’s most politically fractious province. The political landscape of British Columbia has been characterized by divisiveness since Confederation. As outsized personalities from Amor De Cosmos to W.A.C. Bennett dominated the halls of power, militant radicals and reformers took to the streets and the hustings to resist the elites. In A Long Way to Paradise, Robert McDonald debunks the idea that its political culture can be explained as a stylized drama of class conflict. Instead, he identifies “common-sense” liberalism as the key to understanding not only the classic left-right divide in the province but also how its citizens met the demands and challenges of a modernizing world. McDonald tackles age-old questions from a novel perspective. Why were the Liberal and Conservative parties obliterated in the 1950s? What can account for Bennett’s unprecedented decades-long reign? And why did British Columbians come out in support of parties as diametrically opposed as Social Credit and the NDP? This lively, richly detailed overview provides new insight into the fascinating story of provincial politics in Canada’s lotus land.