Alcohol policies reflect conflicting ideological, social, health, and commercial agendas. Sober Reflections describes the development of alcohol policies at the national level and in Alberta, Quebec, and Ontario between 1980 and 2000. Using qualitative research methods, the essays examine the roles of key players, including governments, NGOs, public health advocates, and representatives of the alcohol industry. The contributors base their incisive papers on interviews with representatives from public health and the government, lobbyists, researchers, media, and those in the alcohol industries, as well as on an analysis of government documents, newspaper accounts, and official statistics.

Contributors include Susan Bondy (Toronto), Andrée Demers (Montréal), Madelyn Fournier (consultant, Montreal), Norman Giesbrecht (Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, CAMH), Lynn Kavanagh (Mt Sinai Hospital, Toronto), Evert Lindquist (Victoria), Bronwyn MacKenzie (CAMH), Alan Ogborne (consultant), Robin Room (Stockholm), and Gina Stoduto (CAMH).

This volume presents the final case studies in the Innovation Systems Research Network's (ISRN) five-year investigation of twenty-six industry clusters across Canada. Contributors describe clusters in Toronto, Sudbury, and the Okanagan and in biotechnology, tool and die making, and mining services. They argue that in attempting to craft policies that help existing clusters adjust to differences in institutional linkages, knowledge dimensions, and cluster growth, policy makers must account for historically rooted institutional dynamics and the influence of regional culture.

Contributors, who are members of the ISRN, a national project funded by the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada, include Allison Bramwell (University of Toronto), John N. H. Britton (University of Toronto), Charles H.Davis (Ryerson University), Susan Fitzgibbon (Queen's University), Meric Gertler (University of Toronto), Caroline Hickton (Simon Fraser University), John Holmes (Queen's University), Astrid Jacobson (University of Calgary), Jeremy Karwandy (University of Saskatchewan), Cooper H. Langford (University of Calgary), Gerry Legare (University of Toronto), Nichola Lowe (University of North Carolina), Jen Nelles (University of Toronto), Tim Padmore (University of British Columbia), Julie Lynn Parchewski (University of Saskatchewan), Peter W.B. Phillips (University of Saskatchewan), Tara Procyshyn (University of Saskatchewan), David Robinson (Laurentian University), Tod Rutherford (Syracuse University), Camile D. Ryan (University of Saskatchewan), and Jaime Wood (University of Calgary).