This book is the result of an encounter between a heterogeneous group of social scientists and the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR). This innovative research organization has a well-established practice of supporting the work of researchers over several years so that they can engage in interdisciplinary exploration of new and important topics. Unlike other funding organizations, CIFAR gives its researchers carte blanche. It does not require a predefined plan with clear deliverables. It recognizes the open-ended nature of the research process and aims to facilitate and empower it. This highly original approach often leads to unexpected results.

In 2002, some of us were contacted by CIFAR and asked to come together to think about what defines successful societies and the social conditions that sustain them. After supporting research teams in the fields of population health and human development for a decade, CIFAR was turning its efforts in a new direction to consider a wider range of social factors affecting population health. It called upon us to bring to the table the analytical tools we had deployed in our respective research on a range of topics, including the impact of institutions and cultural frameworks on social relations. Thus an interdisciplinary team that included sociologists, political scientists, a historian, an epidemiologist, and a psychologist came together. We met several times a year in various locations to exchange papers, to learn from each others' work, and to interact with other scholars.