Slumming It at the Rodeo: The Cultural Roots of Canada's Right-Wing Revolution

Description

207 pages
Contains Bibliography
$19.95
ISBN 1-55054-627-9
DDC 971.064'8

Publisher

Year

1998

Contributor

Reviewed by Eric P. Mintz

Eric P. Mintz is an associate professor of political science at Sir
Wilfred Grenfell College, Memorial University of Newfoundland.

Review

In this entertaining look at right-wing populism in Canada, Gordon Laird
portrays Preston Manning, Mike Harris, and Ralph Klein as
“cost-cutting cowboys.” Just as commercialization has transformed
authentic cowboy culture into manufactured “new country music,” so
too contemporary populism has lost its roots and turned into a defence
of the business elite and the forces of corporate globalization. In both
music and politics, a “folksy” image is used to sell “top down
commercialism” to alienated consumers and voters.

Although Laird presents a number of interesting observations and a good
discussion of aboriginal policy, this book does not provide a systematic
and comprehensive analysis of the “right- wing revolution.” The
cultural critique of contemporary populism is unabashedly from a
liberal–leftist intellectual perspective, but the discussion of
creating a genuine democratic alternative to “McPopulism” is
limited.

Citation

Laird, Gordon., “Slumming It at the Rodeo: The Cultural Roots of Canada's Right-Wing Revolution,” Canadian Book Review Annual Online, accessed February 5, 2025, https://cbra.library.utoronto.ca/items/show/3162.