"The Question of Separatism" incorporated and expanded Jacobs' presentation of the 1979 Massey Lectures, entitled "Canadian Cities and Sovereignty-Association". It was published in 1980 and reprinted in 2011 with a previously-unpublished 2005 interview with Robin Philpot on the subject in which she evokes the relative overlooking of that book among her usual readership. This was the first time Jacobs was requested to discuss it in an interview. Columnist Richard Gwyn advanced that while not openly criticizing her, English-speaking Canadians readers thought she did not understood how Canadian politics worked and that she was not being helpful in a time of distress for national unity (the 1980 referendum was just defeated by a vote of 60%). "The Question of Separatism" was also not mentioned in the bibliography of her 2006 obituary in "The Globe and Mail".