Love, Hate, and Fear in Canada's Cold War

Abstract

LOVE, HATE, AND FEAR IN CANADA'S COLD WAR Edited by Richard Cavell Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2004. vi, 2i6pp, $50.00 cloth (ISBN 0-8020-3676-7), $24.95 paper (ISBN 0-8020-8500-8)Any commentary on excesses of Cold War period appearing today naturally invites comparison to post-g/n society. Unfortunately, this collection of essays predates September 2001 terrorist attacks, having originated as a lecture series held at UBC's Green College 2000-01 academic year. The similarities between 19503 against red menace and current war on terror are acknowledged briefly editor Richard Cavell's introduction, as well as a perfunctory footnote accompanying one of essays, but for most part reader is left to draw his or her own comparisons.Cavell's introduction points to two overarching themes essays that follow. The first of these is that personal was indeed political during Cold War. The theory of found applications not only foreign policy, but as an instrument of social and cultural control. This domestic containment consisted of attempts to protect idealized, suburban nuclear family while simultaneously excluding anyone considered to deviate from societal norms. second, this collection tries to distinguish between Cold War as it took place Canada and America's Cold War. Cavell argues that rather than just emulating foreign policy and social trends of United States, Canada fought its own uniquely Cold War, and thus experience must be read differently. A key point Cavell's argument is that, for all participants, Cold War was about preserving national identity in face of a foreign (17), but case of Canada that threat was seen to emanate more from United States than from USSR.Of interdisciplinary collection of essays that follows, first, by political scientist Reg Whitaker, is only one that directly addresses this question of what created a distinctly Canadian experience and style of Cold War. The answer, according to Whitaker, is fact-and nature-of Canada-US relationship: the United States is ambiguous that defines threatening Other (35).Whitaker wonders what stance sole remaining superpower will take when small state and nonstate antagonists have replaced its main adversary (38). We now have a fairly good idea of answer to this question: as George W. …