The Call of the World: A Political Memoir by Bill Graham
| DOI | 10.1177/0020702017740582 |
| Published date | 01 December 2017 |
| Date | 01 December 2017 |
| Subject Matter | Book Reviews |
International Journal
2017, Vol. 72(4) 580–595
!The Author(s) 2017
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DOI: 10.1177/0020702017740582
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Book Reviews
Bill Graham
The Call of the World: A Political Memoir
Vancouver: On Point Press, 2016. 512pp. $39.95 (cloth)
ISBN: 978-0-7748-9000-7
Reviewed by: Hugh Segal (hsegal@masseycollege.ca), Distinguished Fellow, Munk School of
Global Affairs; Master, Massey College, University of Toronto
It is rare when former politicians fail to use every word, sentence, and chapter of
their memoirs to justify their decisions, to explain how they were either misunder-
stood or unheeded when things went wrong, and how their superior sense and
profound understanding of what was necessary prevailed when things went right.
It is precisely this rarity that makes The Call of the World: A Political Memoir so
readable and unique. The author, Bill Graham, served as a foreign minister and a
defence minister in two successive Liberal governments of Canada, and had a
substantial role in the evolution of the defence and foreign policies of Prime
Minister Jean Chre
´tien (1993–2003) and Prime Minister Paul Martin Jr. (2003–
2006). Chre
´tien’s competence and political success was informed by deep pragma-
tism regarding Canada’s world role, with a focus on trade, a broad loyalty to the
United Nations imprimatur for global engagement, and a smaller underfunded
military. Martin drastically cut the military budget, while his finance minister
steadfastly began to ramp up military investment and upgrade Canada’s aspir-
ations for global engagement.
It was Bill Graham’s lot in life to be in the pivotal ministerial roles of foreign
affairs and defence under these successive Liberal prime ministers. This book
addresses, in an engaging manner, the many ways in which Canada marries federal
pressures, bureaucratic and military establishments, diplomatic input, and parlia-
mentary balances or imbalances, to make decisions on foreign deployments, new
treaties, or important de
´marches. He also divulges how competing relationships
with the Anglosphere of the US, Australia, and the UK need to be balanced by
Canada’s Francophone relationships globally, and need to respect our Arctic and
Atlantic exposure to both the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and Russia. All
this, of course, must be calibrated in some way with Canada’s growing and import-
ant trading relationship with China, which was assiduously encouraged by both
Liberal prime ministers. As a manual for how Canadian politics can be simultan-
eously productive and civil, The Call of the World: A Political Memoir passes all the
tests. Details about diplomatic nuance and relationships with counterparts in
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