The United States and Canada by Gerald M. CraigReview by: Robin W. WinksThe American Historical Review, Vol. 74, No. 2 (Dec., 1968), p. 777Published by: Oxford University Press on behalf of the American Historical AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1853921 .

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Americas 777

THE UNITED STATES AND CANADA. By Gerald M. Craig. [The American Foreign Policy Library.] (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. I968. Pp. 376. $7.95.)

THIs book, the seventeenth to appear in the Harvard University Press's "American Foreign Policy Library" series, is an excellent and comprehensive survey of Ca- nadian history, of the Canadian-American relationship, and of Canadian problems today. The greatest of these problems is indicated by the fact that Canada had to be the seventeenth in line (after the Balkans, the Southwest Pacific, and North Africa) to be served at this cafeteria of knowledge, and that some of the books in the series-a venture first launched a quarter of a century ago by Sumner Welles and Donald C. McKay-have been around long enough to go into second and third editions. That Americans tend to ignore Canada is well known; Professor Craig, a distinguished Canadian historian, trained at the University of Minnesota, teaching in the University of Toronto, and author of two previous books of qual- ity and importance, gives us an urbane demonstration of why this is so. Perhaps crowning the argument is the fact that the series' most recent editor, Crane Brin- ton, refers to Gerald Craig, the Canadianist, as Gordon Craig, the Germanist, in his own editor's note.

Craig begins by asking whether the continued existence of Canada is a north- ern miracle. He then examines, in four succinct chapters, the land, the people, and the political and economic life of Canada, implying without arguing that they provide Canadians with distinctive characteristics by which they are set apart from other North Americans. Twelve compact historical chapters follow, moving from French settlement to I967, with emphasis on the recent past. Five chap- ters, on Canadian issues and problems and how they influence, and are influenced by, the Canadian-American relationship, conclude the book. There are a selective, and excellent, list of suggested readings and a brief appendix of facts about Canada, together with end paper maps. The standard of printing and proofread- ing, save in the preface, are of the highest.

Much is already known about Canadian-American relations, and there are many specialized studies ranging from the twenty-five volumes in "The Relations of Canada and the United States" series, published between I936 and I945, to de- tailed and as yet unpublished dissertations. Craig is writing for a wide-ranging, literate, and nonspecialist audience; to that audience he has much to say that will be found new, and he says it gracefully and with a sense of irony. His conclusion that there are distinct differences between Canada and the United States, in policy, attitudes, and culture, will not be found new to specialists, but will be none- theless salutary for the general reader. One could scarcely find a better place to be- gin learning about the "unknown country" than with this synthesis, which tells of a nation that is, as Craig suggests (borrowing from an alleged Mexican saying), "So far from God, so near to the United States." Yale University ROBIN W. WINKS

CRITICS OF SOCIETY: RADICAL THOUGHT IN NORTH AMERICA. By T. B. Bottomore. (New York: Pantheon Books. I968. Pp. I50. $4.95.)

THIS survey originated as a series of talks for the Canadian Broadcasting Corpora-

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