Victory 1945

Whether it is resentment over trade barriers, fear of cultural domination, disapproval of U.S. foreign policy, or merely old-fashioned jealousy of a more powerful neighbour, Canadians have made excellent anti-Americans. Yankee Go Home? traces the winding course of this feeling over two centuries - from the United Empire Loyalists who fled north to escape unbridled republicanism, through the early twentieth century when the barons of business were determined to keep out U.S. competition, to the post-war period when Canadian nationalists took up the cry. Granatstein maintains that what began as a justifiable fear of invasion eventually became a tool of the economic and political elites bent on preserving their power. At first, anti-Americanism was largely the Tory way of keeping pro-British attitudes uppermost in the minds of Canadians. Later, with the right wing embracing the free-trade deal, it became the most important weapon of the nationalist left. Today, anti-Americanism is weaker than ever before. And what of the future? Will we inevitably become more "American" in spite of ourselves? Can we even agree on what being "Canadian" means?