Shadows of Empire: The Anglosphere in British Politics by Michael Kenny and Nick Pearce

Abstract

understandable and laudable, but it puts a large security blanket over what one can write and say. ‘‘Senior officers’’ abound in Stewart’s book, often writing interesting things that are duly quoted, but Stewart cannot tell, and we cannot say, what their bureaucratic weight might have been. Stewart thinks well of some of the ambassadors, for example Celucci and Wilkins. From my own observation he may well be right, and is certainly right to balance the Canadian nationalist critique of the two men. The twenty years from 1990 to 2010 marked the height of US power. The United States had the largest economy and the biggest military. In the 1990s, Western countries, led by the United States, were storing up future trouble, but that was by no means apparent at the time. Where Canada was concerned, the United States did not throw its weight around. For some problems, solutions were found; for intractable and perennial issues (fish, or softwood lumber) there was little that could be done, no matter how much effort and good will were fed into the diplomatic machinery. There were fantasies of economic integration, not for the first time in Canadian–American history. Stewart is useful and insightful on these. After 2001, things were different. The United States became preoccupied with security, and tightened its frontiers, including that with Canada. Canada responded, generally constructively, so that trans-border constrictions did not really hinder trade. Stewart sees the hand of anti-Americanism in some of the words and actions of the Chrétien and Martin governments, and as a Canadian he is only too aware of the anti-American threads woven into Canadian history and politics. Americans visiting Canada, even diplomats, are often shocked when they discover this Canadian trait. Some take it in their stride, and even reflect that this is what can happen when a small country lives beside a much bigger one. Here he occasionally goes overboard, as in his enthusiasm for the unproven (to put it mildly) anti-ballistic missile (ABM) defence system. It is not essential that Canadians should jump in to every US enthusiasm, no matter how stupid. It’s enough to support the many good ideas that flow from south of the border, and to sympathize with the many Americans who take rational and sensible positions on the world. Sometimes indeed the ‘‘good Americans’’ need a bit of comfort and support. That is especially the case in the Age of Trump.