Review: Canada: On Guard for Thee
| Published date | 01 March 1991 |
| DOI | 10.1177/002070209104600117 |
| Date | 01 March 1991 |
| Author | Desmond Morton |
| Subject Matter | Review |
198
INTERNATIONAL
JOURNAL
agreement
constitutes
a
dramatically
new
and
perhaps
final
chapter
in
Canadian
history.
On
balance,
however,
one
of
the
major
strengths
of
Canada
since
1945
is
its
historical
perspective.
What
emerges from
this
study
is
a
profound
sense
of
uncertainty among
Canadians
as
to
their
place
in
the
world.
'The
Canadian
elite knew
what
it
didn't
like,'
but
'it
could
hardly agree
on
what
it
wanted. American
investment,
American
cul-
ture,
and
American
alliances
were
condemned
by
some
intellectuals,
and
even
a
few
politicians.
Yet
the
alternatives
were
clear:
the
fuzzy
Commonwealth
...
the
forlorn
hope
of
a
closer
relationship
with
Europe.'
But
would
Canada's freedom
survive
'the
removal
of
the
United
States's
protecting
armed
umbrella?
Most
Canadians
thought
not.'
(p
130)
In
their
essence,
these are
contemporary
Canadian
for-
eign
policy
dilemmas.
But they surfaced
in
1956,
'when
the
controversy
about
American
leadership
and
American
investment
merged
into
the
pipeline
debate
and
then
into
recriminations
over
Suez'
(p
131
).
As
the
authors
of
Canada
since
1945
perceptively note,
these
events
marked
a
watershed
in
the
history
of
Canada's
foreign
policy
as
it
moved
from
an
era
of
consensus
towards
an
era
of
partisan
debate and
incertitude
which
continues
today.
M.J.
Tucker/Mount
Allison
University
ON
GUARD
FOR
ThEE
War,
ethnicity,
and
the
Canadian
state,
1939-1945
Edited
by
Norman
Hillmer,
Bohdan
Kordan,
Lubomyr
Luciuk
Ottawa:
Supply
and
Services
Canada
for
the
Canadian
Committee
for
the
History
of
the
Second
World
War,
1988,
XX,
281pp,
$16.25
Two
Solitudes,
Hugh
MacLennan's
novel
of
Canada
in
the
First
World
War,
gave
too
simple
an
image
of
a
country
of
many
cultural
solitudes.
During
the
Second World
War,
only
two
of
those
solitudes
had
much
power:
English
Canadians
dominated
the
wartime
government
of
Mac-
kenzie
King
and
its
agencies;
French
Canadians
provided
a
reliable
chorus
of
opposition
to
the
entry
of
refugees,
particularly
if
they might
be
Jews.
Other
solitudes
spoke
only
nervously
or
through
such
allies
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