Making a Difference?: Canada's Foreign Policy in a Changing World Order

Edelgard E. Mahant is a political sciences professor at Laurentian
University.

This largely historical collection of 11 articles about Canadian foreign
policy in the 20th century consists almost exclusively of the same
people saying the same things they have said many times before. How true
this is can be judged from the fact that Barbara McDougall’s
“Introduction” constitutes one of the more interesting original
pieces in the volume. She (or her speech writer) outlines some of the
changes in foreign policy in the post–Cold War world.

The rest of the book consists of contributions by such well-known
writers on Canadian foreign policy as Robert Bothwell, Kim Nossal, and
J.L. Granatstein. They all are engaged in the quintessentially Canadian
pastime of trying to gauge what influence Canada had on other countries,
on international agencies, or on international events. Strong editing is
one of this book’s most positive features. Nearly all the writers
concentrate on the assigned theme. Yet the result resembles a potpourri
more than it does a thesis.

Margaret Doxey (on the Commonwealth), David Bercuson (on defence
spending), and Patricia Roy (on China and Japan) contribute carefully
researched factual essays, while Jean-Philippe Therrien, on la
francophonie, is only slightly more analytical. Robert Bothwell (on the
United States), Andrew F. Cooper (on multilateralism), and J.L.
Granatstein (on peacekeeping) try to reinterpret what has been
overinterpreted many times already. Pat Sewell (on the United Nations)
attempts a different angle by focusing on the contributions individual
Canadians have made to the United Nations, but succeeds only in
producing a catalogue. Kim Nossal takes a stab at originality by
accusing Canadians of a—thwarted—longing to be European.

Overall, this book will be informative to those who have not yet
studied the history of Canadian foreign policy. To those who have, it
will provide only the occasional new detail.