At Home and Abroad: The Canada–US Relationship and Canada’s Place in the World, by Patrick Lennox
| Author | Sean Clark |
| DOI | 10.1177/0020702014564661 |
| Date | 01 March 2015 |
| Published date | 01 March 2015 |
| Subject Matter | Book Reviews |
this pitfall and tries to account for it, not always successfully. In fairness, trying to
do more would have made what is already a long book even longer.
Will this book receive the readership that it deserves? Pessimists will note that
Jackson’s study is a ‘‘thick’’ book that demands close reading to derive from it the
greatest benefit, which may work against the circulation of his ideas, leaving old,
discredited verities intact. Optimists will point to the ways in which the themes
addressed here amplify other studies that have sparked renewed interest in the
history of international organizations and internationalism. Jackson’s book
deserves to be ranked among the best of these. Specialists will delight that it is
another blow to the caricature of French policy drawn by John Maynard Keynes in
his The Economic Consequences of the Peace. Perhaps the legend of a vindictive
France, driven by fear, grasping at continental pre-eminence, obsessed with the
balance of power, will be interred by Jackson.
Patrick Lennox
At Home and Abroad: The Canada–US Relationship and Canada’s Place in the World
Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2010. 192 pp., $32.95 (paper)
ISBN 978–0–7748–1706–6
Reviewed by: Sean Clark, Dalhousie University
‘‘Canada’s sprawling land mass and vast seaboards,’’ wrote Robert Sarty, ‘‘are
indefensible by its tiny population without the assistance of strong allies.’’
1
Indeed, Canada stretches almost a quarter of the way around the globe and yet
even today boasts a population less than that of Tokyo-Yokohama. From the
country’s earliest times, policymakers have remained acutely aware of this geostra-
tegic quandary. The Fathers of Confederation, for example, knew enough to
squeeze out of Britain a pledge to rescue the fledgling dominion if threatened
militarily. Mackenzie King was similarly adroit, eliciting a security guarantee
from the US in August 1938, after it had become increasingly apparent that
Britain was no longer up to the task of defending vast tracts of Canadian wilder-
ness. ‘‘I give to you assurance,’’ US president Franklin D. Roosevelt declared,
‘‘that the people of the United States will not stand idly by if domination of
Canadian soil is threatened by any other Empire.’’
2
This confirms Robert
Bothwell’s observation that the overarching task of Canadian foreign policy is to
ensure ‘‘neighbourly’’ relations with our all-important benefactors.
3
So sprawling
and sparsely populated a nation confronts no alternative. We either cultivate
friendly and cooperative ties with powerful patrons or face extinction at more
powerful hands.
1 Cited in Robert Bothwell and Jean Daudelin, eds., Canada among Nations, 2008: 100 Years of
Canadian Foreign Policy (Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2009), 4.
2 Cited in H.L. Keenleyside, ‘‘The Canada-United States Permanent Joint Board on Defence,
1940–1945,’’ International Journal 16, no. 1 (1960): 52.
3 Bothwell and Daudelin, eds., Canada among Nations, 2008, vii.
168 International Journal 70(1)
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