Canadians have chosen Ezra Levant's Shakedown in an online poll as the best political book of the past 25 years.

The online contest was put on by the Writers’ Trust of Canada and Samara, which promotes democracy and participation in public life, to let voters nominate and choose their favourite recent politics books.

Online voters chose Levant's book Shakedown: How Our Government is Undermining Democracy in the Name of Human Rights, which was published in 2009. Shakedown looks at how government-appointed human rights bodies have strayed from the noble purpose for which they were created.

Rounding out the top four were Stevie Cameron's On the Take: Crime, Corruption and Greed in the Mulroney Years, published in 1994; Lawrence Martin’s Harperland: The Politics of Control, published in 2010; and John Duffy’s Fights of Our Lives: Elections, Leadership, and the Making of Canada, published in 2002.

Thousands of Canadian readers voted online from the final list of 12 books, originally published June 27.

The finalists were:

  • Stevie Cameron, On the Take: Crime, Corruption and Greed in the Mulroney Years (1994)
  • Stephen Clarkson and Christina McCall, Trudeau and Our Times, Vol. 1: The Magnificent Obsession (1990) and Vol. 2: The Heroic Delusion (1994)
  • Andrew Cohen, While Canada Slept: How We Lost Our Place in the World (2003)
  • John Duffy, Fights of Our Lives: Elections, Leadership and the Making of Canada (2002)
  • Terry Fallis, The Best Laid Plans (2008)
  • Ron Graham, One-Eyed Kings: Promise & Illusion in Canadian Politics (1986)
  • Richard Gwyn, John A: The Man Who Made Us; The Life and Times of John A. Macdonald, Vol. 1 (2007)
  • Ezra Levant, Shakedown: How Our Government is Undermining Democracy in the Name of Human Rights (2009)
  • Lawrence Martin, Harperland: The Politics of Control (2010)
  • Christopher Moore, 1867: How the Fathers Made a Deal (1997)
  • John Ralston Saul, A Fair Country: Telling Truths about Canada (2008)
  • Paul Wells, Right Side Up: The Fall of Paul Martin and the Rise of Stephen Harper's Conservatism (2006)

The Best Canadian Political Books of the Last 25 Years is a project meant to get Canadians to reflect on Canada's political history and the ideas and personalities that have driven meaningful debates over the last two decades.