Posts com a Tag ‘NEIDHARDT W S (Res)’
Fire and Ice: The United States, Canada and the Myth of Converging Values – ADAMS (CSS)
ADAMS, Michael. Fire and Ice: The United States, Canada and the Myth of Converging Values. Toronto: Penguin Press, 2003. 224p. Resenha de: NEIDHARDT, W. S.. Canadian Social Studies, v.39, n.2, p., 2005.
For many years now Canadians – at least those who are interested in their country’s history – have been exposed to countless books and articles about the Canadian-American relationship. Most of the authors inevitably concluded that Canada was slowly but surely drifting into a closer relationship with the United States. In fact, some writers even predicted that Canada’s ultimate destiny was nothing less than complete absorption into the American republic. In Fire and Ice, Michael Adams challenges what he calls the existing myth of inevitability and advances the rarely heard, and even more rarely substantiated, thesis that Canadians and Americans are actually becoming increasingly different from one another (p. 4).
Adams is quite aware that most Canadians may not, at first, believe him. He readily admits that Canada is increasingly dependent on the U.S. economy and that Canadians consume increasing amounts of American popular culture, products, services and imagination (p. 140). He also points out that in a recent public opinion poll – taken in 2002 – 58% of Canadians thought that Canada had been becoming more or less similar to the United States during the preceding ten years (p. 3). He also fully acknowledges that the two North American nations do have, indeed, much in common, including such things as common founding principles and similar political institutions.
However, Adams also wants his readers to know that there are, in fact, some very fundamental differences that have developed between the two countries over the years. For example, he refers to the ‘revolutionary tradition’ in the U.S.A as opposed to the ‘counter-revolutionary tradition’ in Canada, the contrasting attitudes Americans and Canadians have towards the roles of government, and the quite different beliefs they have about the role of religion in their daily lives. As one reads each chapter in Fire and Ice, one begins to believe that Adams is onto something and that his thesis is not a mere flight of academic fancy but rather a thoroughly researched and carefully constructed argument.
The book is filled with a vast array of statistics that he and his colleagues at Environics compiled while conducting over 14000 individual interviews and numerous focus groups and surveys. Based on these findings, Adams argues that fundamental values, motivations, and mindsets were changing (p. 7) in recent years in both Canada and the United States and that these changes in peoples’ social values have, in fact, created two distinct societies in North America. The author, who is more a social scientist than a historian (Seymour Lipset seems to be his much admired role model) believes that much of what people say when they are asked specific questions during public opinion polls tends to reveal only how they feel about specific issues. Furthermore, he argues that these polls generally do not involve the social value assessment criteria that are required in order to elicit peoples’ more fundamental beliefs and values.
Adams makes skilfull use of the social scientist’s repertoire as he examines a variety of areas of social change that have taken place in Canada and the United States including religion, multiculturalism, immigration, the status of women, patriarchal authority, consumerism, social welfare, gun-control and many others. In the final analysis, Adams concludes that his research data clearly establishes that Canadians and Americans embrace a different hierarchy of values (p. 147) and that the two nations are socio-culturally distinct and will remain so for many years to come – perhaps indefinitely (p. 76).
Some of Adams’ conclusions may well be seen as quite provocative and will probably not endear him to some readers – especially those who espouse the neo-conservative vision for the Canada of the future – when he suggests that the United States is becoming a country where we find values of nihilism, aggression, fear of the other, and consumptive one-upmanship (p. 72). While he supports the commonly held view that the United States is a more competitive society than Canada and that Americans are more innovative, he also describes America as being more violent and more racist (p. 115). He suggests that Americans worship money and success more than Canadians do but he also admits they are more willing to take risks in the hope that they might win than to ensure against disaster in fear that they might lose (p. 115). Meanwhile, Canada, according to Adams, is showing increasing flexibility, openness, autonomy and fulfillment (p. 74) and is perhaps becoming the home of a unique postmodern, postmaterial multiculturalism, generating hardy strains of new hybrids that will enrich this country and many others in the world (p. 143).
Fire and Ice is a clearly written and carefully researched book. In his introduction the author spells out what he wants to say and in the subsequent six short chapters he does what he said he would do. For the amateur social scientists in us he has included seven appendices (60 pages in length) which provide ample information about the social values methodology that was used to collect and interpret the vast amount of data. In addition, the book has a useful Trend Glossary, a carefully prepared index, several humorous but thought-provoking cartoons from the New Yorker, numerous graphs, and a short bibliography. As far as usability in the classroom is concerned, Fire and Ice is a must read for teachers and students who study the Canadian-American relationship because it provides a compellingly different view from the traditional interpretation as to where Canadian and American societies are heading.
In my opinion, Fire and Ice richly deserves to be the winner of the Donner Prize as the best book on Canadian public policy in 2003/04. Perhaps this paragraph – found at the end of chapter four of the book will best sum up Michael Adams’ message: In my nightmares, I may see the American fire melting the Canadian ice and then dream of the waters created by the melting ice drowning the fire, but this will not happen – at least not in our lifetimes. The two cultures will continue side by side, converging their economies, technologies, and now their security and defence policies, but they will continue to diverge in the ways that most people in each country, I believe, will continue to celebrate (p. 126).
S. Neidhardt – Northview Heights S.S. History Department (retired). Toronto, Ontario.
[IF]Northern Passage: American Vietnam War Resisters in Canada – HAGAN (CSS)
HAGAN, John. Northern Passage: American Vietnam War Resisters in Canada. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001. 269p. Resenha de: NEIDHARDT, W. S. Canadian Social Studies, v.37, n.2, 2003.
The Vietnam War was a most traumatic experience for the American people for it was a war unlike any other war that Americans had ever fought. Never before had the homefront seen images of war so quickly and so graphically. The powerful presence of a television set in almost every American home and the nightly war reports from the seemingly war-obsessed news media combined to make this far-away conflict American’s first living room war.
As American casualties increased steadily, a growing concern began to spread throughout much of the United States that this was one war which America might just possibly not win. Indeed, as the war dragged on, a growing number of Americans began to question the legitimacy of their country’s political and military involvement in this far-away conflict in south-east Asia. In fact, by the late 1960’s, America had become a house divided over the Vietnam War and the consequences of that painful experience reached far beyond the borders of the United States.
In Northern Passage, John Hagan has provided a well-written and solidly researched book about the American draft and military resister experience in Canada. During his research, Hagan seems to have consulted a considerable range of archival material and most of the more important secondary literature on the subject. He also managed to interview various Canadian and American government officials as well as one hundred Vietnam war resisters who came to Canada particularly Toronto during those turbulent years.
John Hagan was not a draft resister. He tells us that his first contact with Canada came during a brief visit to Toronto in 1968. Soon thereafter he attended graduate school at the University of Alberta from where he observed the anti-Vietnam drama while occasionally becoming involved in local anti-war demonstrations in Edmonton. In 1974 he arrived back in Toronto to join the faculty of the University of Toronto.
Each of the six chapters in this book has a clear and major focus. Chapter 1 explores the reasons why so many war resisters, including thousands of young women, decided to come to Canada during what Hagan calls the largest politically-motivated exodus from the United States since the country’s beginning (p. xi). Chapter 2 explains why and how the Canadian government – which initially had been rather reluctant to take in any resisters – suddenly liberalized its immigration laws in the late spring of 1969 and thereby allowed thousands of war resisters to find refuge on Canadian soil. Chapter 3 concentrates almost entirely on Toronto’s so-called American Ghetto and how the presence of at least 20, 000 war resisters affected Toronto’s social, economic and political life. Hagan also provides detailed accounts of the Toronto Anti Draft Program (TADP) and Amex the magazine that began as a major source of news for American resisters and eventually became a major anti-Vietnam War lobbying force.
Chapter 4 focuses on the personal and professional lives of many of the war resisters and tries to explain why for so many of them, their resistance activities became a turning point in the development of long-term commitments to social and political action (p. 99). Chapter 5 examines how the Canadian and American governments dealt with the explosive amnesty issue. The Canadian Parliament granted a complete amnesty to all war resisters who had entered Canada illegally and offered each one the opportunity to apply for landed immigrant status. The American government, however, only offered a limited amnesty and then only to so-called draft-dodgers. Chapter 6 tries to explain why-after the Vietnam War was over-so many of these war resisters chose to stay in Canada. It obviously was a difficult decision for many of them, as these words from one deeply-troubled young American so clearly reveal: I feel a very strong allegiance to this country that took me in and made me welcome, but I also feel an identity coming out of my youth, my childhood, of the country where I grew up (p. 204).
Northern Passage serves as a powerful testament to all those young war resisters who risked so much for the sake of their own values and convictions. Choosing to come to Canada certainly must have been a soul-searching event for most of these young men and women whose patriotism and judgement was continuously questioned – and not only on the American side of the 49th Parallel. One wonders what they thought and felt when they learned that Robert McNamara-the once hawkish American Secretary of Defense during the height of the Vietnam War-made this remarkable admission in his memoirs in 1995: I believe we could and should have withdrawn from South Vietnam either in late 1963or late 1964 or early 1965 (p. 25).
W.S. Neidhardt – Toronto, Ontario.
[IF]Star-Spangled Canadians: Canadians Living the American Dream – SIMPSON (CSS)
SIMPSON, Jeffrey. Star-Spangled Canadians: Canadians Living the American Dream. Toronto: Harper Collins Ltd., 2000. 391p. Resenha de: NEIDHARDT, W. S. Canadian Social Studies, v.36, n.2, 2002.
Jeffrey Simpson is, of course, not only a widely read and highly regarded political columnist for The Globe and Mail, but also the author of several bestsellers about the Canadian political scene. In his most recent book, entitled Star-Spangled Canadians, he focuses on the experiences of that not insignificant group of Canadians who have left their Canadian homeland in order to pursue their dream in the United States.
Star-Spangled Canadians offers the reader almost 400 pages of text, endnotes, bibliography and index; unfortunately, there are no photos or illustrations. However, between a solid introduction and a thought-provoking conclusion, there are eleven informative chapters filled with lots of interesting information and much careful analysis. In Chapters 1 and 2 respectively entitled History and Differences the author provides his readers with a good historical background to his topic before turning to specific chapters dealing with: Race/Ethnicity; Crime; French Canadians; Brain Drain; Health; Academics; Entrepreneurship/Business; New York; and Entertainment/Journalism.
For anyone who is interested in this particular aspect of the Canadian-American relationship, Simpson has produced a most readable and solidly researched book. In fact, he interviewed nearly 250 expatriates as part of his extensive research. While some of his information is old, much more is new and this makes for some very worth-while reading. Simpson offers what are, perhaps, some rather unexpected conclusions, such as: that the United States is now more of a multi-cultural society while Canada has become more of a melting pot (pp. 89-91); that the image of America as a more violent society than Canada is only partially correct (p. 95); that the exodus of so many Canadians to the United States is more the result of greater opportunities in America than high taxes in Canada (pp. 156 – 157, 169-170, 246 -247); that the Canadian and American medical systems will look somewhat more alike a decade from now and Canadians and Americans will become even more alike too (p. 215); and, that the brain drain is not quite the one way street that many Canadians are led to believe, although there is little doubt that some of the best and the brightest Canadians have left in the past and are still leaving today (pp. 218, 239, 356). In Chapter 9, Simpson offers a detailed explanation of why the American business climate remains such a powerful magnet for many Canadians; and, in Chapter 11, he provides ample evidence that the big leagues in the worlds of entertainment and journalism still remain south of the border.
In Star-Spangled Canadians, Jeffrey Simpson has given us an excellent account of why and how so many Canadians have sought to pursue their dreams within the borders of the American republic; in fact, he estimates that at the end of the 20th century there were at least 660,000 former Canadians living in the United States (p. 7). However, the author also informs his readers that many of these Star-Spangled Canadians have, indeed, returned home over the years. Furthermore, he also tells us that while these expatriates ABC ‘s news-anchor Peter Jennings being one of the best known have made their homes and pursued their careers in the United States, many of them have actually remained Canadian citizens.
In his thoughtful conclusion, Simpson wanders a bit off his main topic and he spends considerable time speculating about Canada’s future relationship with her powerful continental neighbour. His suggestion that the United States will always be the most dominant country for Canada (p. 363) is, of course, hardly news. However, he does offer a keen insight when he shrewdly observes that whatever Canadians may think of their American neighbours, they have never been more like them. And not because Americans have changed to become more like Canadians, but the other way around (p. 343). Near the end of his book, Simpson (who incidentally was born in New York City and came as a nine-year old to Montreal with his parents) suggests to his readers that living beside the United States is both a challenge and an opportunity a challenge to preserve Canadians’ margin of distinctiveness, an opportunity to examine what the Americans are doing and adapt the successful aspects of American society for Canadian purposes (p. 362). This seems to me quite an accurate observation about what the future may be like. I also hope that Simpson will be proven a real visionary when he suggests that there is no reason why Canada cannot succeed. (p. 362).
Star-Spangled Canadians is obviously not a textbook. However, teachers and students alike can benefit greatly by reading this virtual gold mine of information about a hitherto much-neglected area of the Canadian-American relationship. This is the kind of book that deserves to be widely read and hopefully a copy will find its way into most school and public libraries and most certainly onto the shelves of every history department.
W. S. Neidhardt – Northview Heights S.S. Toronto, Ontario.
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