The definitive history of Canadian foreign policy since the 1930s, Canada First, Not Canada Alone examines how successive prime ministers have promoted Canada's national interests in a world that has grown increasingly complex and interconnected. Case studies focused on environmental reform, Indigenous peoples, trade, hostage diplomacy, and wartime strategy illustrate the breadth of issues that shape Canada's global realm. Drawing from extensive primary and secondary research, Adam Chapnick and Asa McKercher offer a fresh take on how Canada positions itself in the world.
It is hard to imagine a person who embodied the ideals of postwar Canadian foreign policy more than John Wendell Holmes. Holmes joined the foreign service in 1943, headed the Canadian Institute of International Affairs from 1960 to 1973, and, as a professor of international relations, mentored a generation of students and scholars. This book charts the life of a diplomat and public intellectual who influenced both how scholars and statespeople abroad viewed Canada and how Canadians saw themselves on the world stage.
Confederation may have established Canada’s nationhood in 1867, but the relationships framing Canada’s modern existence go back much further. Employing a unique socio-historical perspective, Canadian Society in the Twenty-First Century examines three formative relationships that have shaped the country: Canada and Quebec, Canada and the United States, and Canada and Indigenous nations. Now in its fourth edition, this engaging text offers students an overview of Canadian society through a series of connections rather than a collection of statistics. Trevor W. Harrison and John W. Friesen weave together complex aspects of the nation’s economic, political, and socio-cultural development. They guide readers to use this interdisciplinary framework to consider some of the tough questions that Canada is likely to face in adjusting to demands and challenges in the next few decades. Reflecting the most current scholarship in the field, this revised edition features new discussions on issues such as the current crisis of neo-liberal globalization, Canada’s petroleum industry, global warming, the Wet’suwet’en dispute in 2020, and the COVID-19 pandemic. Exploring the unique character of Canada today, this text is a vibrant resource for sociology courses on Canadian society as well as courses in Canadian studies and Canadian history.
Canada must prepare for an isolationist and unpredictable neighbour to the South should a MAGA leader gain the White House in 2025. The American-led global order has been increasingly challenged by Chinese assertiveness and Russian revanchism. As we enter this new era of great-power competition, Canadians tend to assume that the United States will continue to provide global leadership for the West. Canada Alone sketches the more dystopian future that is likely to result if the illiberal, anti-democratic, and authoritarian Make America Great Again movement regains power. Under the twin stresses of a reinvigorated America First policy and the purposeful abandonment of American global leadership, the West will likely fracture, leaving Canadians all alone with an increasingly dysfunctional United States. Canada Alone outlines what Canadians will need to navigate this deeply unfamiliar post-American world.
Oft-ignored in the study of Canadian history or dismissed as a vestige of colonial status, the governor general's office provides essential historical insight into Canada's constitutional evolution. In the nineteenth century, as today, individual governors general exercised considerable scope in interpreting their approach to the office. The era 1847-1878 witnessed profound changes in Canada's relationship with Britain, and in this new book, Barbara J. Messamore explores the nature of these changes through an examination of the role of the governor general. Guided by outmoded instructions and constitutional conventions that were not yet firmly established, the governors general of the time - Lord Elgin, Sir Edmund Head, Lord Monck, Lord Lisgar, and Lord Dufferin - all wrestled with the implications of colonial self government. The imprecision of the viceregal role made the character of the appointee especially important and biographical details are thus essential to an understanding of how the new experiment of colonial self-government was put into practice. Messamore's book marries constitutional history and biography, providing illumination on some of the key figures of nineteenth-century Canadian politics.
