Glendon College proudly congratulates Professor Colin Coates on receiving the Prix de l’Assemblée nationale du Québec for Best Book in Political History for his groundbreaking work, Political Culture in Louis XIV’s Canada: Majesty, Ritual, and Rhetoric (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2024).
Awarded by the Institut d’histoire de l’Amérique française, this distinction recognizes Professor Coates’s innovative contribution to understanding the political life of New France under the reign of Louis XIV.
In Political Culture in Louis XIV’s Canada, Coates explores how the French monarchy sought to establish and legitimize its authority in New France—despite the colony’s distance from Europe and its location on Indigenous territory. Drawing on an impressive range of sources, including architecture, art, currency, maps, and ritual performances, Coates shows how French royal power was reimagined and adapted in a colonial context.
The recognition highlights how Political Culture in Louis XIV’s Canada moves beyond traditional political, social, and diplomatic analyses to illuminate the ways in which colonial subjects in the St. Lawrence Valley recognized and enacted royal authority through ceremony, representation, and expressions of loyalty to the monarchy. The book was also commended for its major contribution to the political history of New France, its innovative approach, the depth of its research, and the sophistication of its argumentation.
By tracing the emergence of a distinct colonial political culture, Coates illuminates how the pomp and politics of Louis XIV’s court travelled across the Atlantic—and how encounters with Indigenous nations shaped French understandings of sovereignty and governance in North America.
Glendon College extends its warmest congratulations to Professor Coates on this outstanding achievement.