Product Description

Nothing makes Canadians angrier than the sense that they are being bullied by the United States. From the time of the American Revolution, anti-American feeling has been a defining part of Canadian life. And yet, as J.L. Granatstein argues in this articulate and opinionated exploration of Anti-Americanism in Canada, the United States has been too easy a target for our animosities and insecurities.

Yankee Go Home? traces the winding course of these anti-American feelings 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 to 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.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2201441 in Books
• Published on: 1997-07
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 336 pages

From Booklist
Of the varieties of anti-Americanism in the world, the Canadian strain has the oldest lineage, and according to this noted Canadian historian, it is finished as a factor in Canadian politics. With the failure to stop the 1988 FTA (the precursor to NAFTA), anti-Americanism seems dead, but for the two preceding centuries it had a boisterous run and affected many elections. Usually, the Tories played the anti^-Uncle Sam card, and Granatstein renders their campaigns of 1891 and 1911 in strong hues, as the Conservatives depicted "reciprocity" (low tariffs negotiated by the Liberals) as a sellout of Canadian independence. Fifty years later, the Tories were still at it, as Prime Minister Diefenbaker loudly beat the Yankees-out drum, yet lost the 1963 election. However, political antipathy to the southern colossus continued through the '60s and '70s, as Granatstein underscores its manifestations in disparate intellectual and economic areas. This lively presentation, ending with the waning of protectionism in the '80s, surely fills a subject gap in many American libraries. Gilbert Taylor

About the Author
J.L. Granatstein is a distinguished Canadian historian and the author of over 40 books, including Victory 1945, Empire to Umpire: Canadian Foreign Policy to the 1990s and The Generals, which won the J.W. Dafoe Prize and the UBC Medal for Canadian Biography. The royal Society of Canada awarded him the J.B. Tyrell Historical Gold Medal (1992) for "outstanding work in the history of Canada." In 1996, the Conference of Defence Associations Institute named him winner of the Vimy Award for "achievement and effort in the field of Canadian defence and security." He comments regularly on historical questions and public affairs in the media. A Distinguished Research Professor of History Emertius at York University, he has received honorary degrees from Memorial University and University of Calgary and is a member of the Royal Military College of Canada Board of Governors.

Customer Reviews

Interesting read; balanced treatment
Prof. Granatstein has performed an enormous public service to his countrymen by writing this book. Too bad most Canadians will never read it. Instead, I imagine that the majority of readers will be U.S. expats trying to understand the insecurity, paranoia and passive self-righteousness of some of the Canadian public and most of the Canadian media and political elite when it comes to matters concerning the U.S.

Granatstein provides a thorough history of anti-Americanism, which is rooted in the expulsion of British loyalists from the U.S. colonies during the Revolutionary War to the inhospitable reaches of Upper Canada (now Ontario). Events such as the U.S. "invasion" of Canada during its War of 1812 with British aggressors have entered Canadian mythology as naked American aggression toward peaceful Canucks. This aggression and disrespect for the sovereignty of other nations, of course, is a fundamental tenet of U.S. policy in the eyes of many Canadians. ! In reality, of course, the U.S. enetered Canada during that war to extinguish British forces, harbored by Canadian colonists, that were making periodic destructive forays into New York and Vermont.

Granatstein also lucidly explains the great 20th-century British "betrayal" of Canada during WW-I when the bankrupt Brits were forced to turn to the U.S. for men, materiel and money in order to defeat the Germans. This essentially pushed Canada into the arms of the U.S. as America became the defacto world power in the wake of the war. This "betrayal" underpins most modern Canadian antipathy of America. It is interesting that it appears an article of faith among modern Canadians that the U.S. revolution against Britain was fundamentally illegitimate and the root of much evil in world today.

This list goes on and on, and Granatstein is steely in his objectivity. After listening to the shrill knee-jerk denunciations of the U.S. that are staples of daily Ca! nadian media and political discourse, one can turn to this ! book to understand their genesis. It is especially sad in these days of continuing friction between central and western English-speaking Canada and its Francophone and maritime provinces that Canadians conveniently seek an external locus of control on which to blame their problems.

This is a fine and wonderful country; if only its citizens would exorcise their insecurities and move forward. Reading this book with an open mind and unflinching introspection would be a productive move in that direction. It takes much more effort and honesty for one to read this book and reappraise Canadian bigotry toward America than it does to turn on Jerry Springer and indulge in sweeping, facile generalizations about U.S. society.

"YGH" should be required reading at the CBC, Globe and Mail, and in parliament.