Your Country, My Country: A Unified History of the United States and Canada - Softcover

Bothwell, Robert

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0190840811 ISBN 13: 9780190840815

Publisher: Oxford University Press, 2017

Synopsis

Canada: land of hockey, terrible weather, unfailing politeness-and little else, as far as many Americans are aware. For Canadians, the United States is seen as a land of unparalleled opportunity and unparalleled failure, a country of heights and abysses. The straitlaced country in the north could hardly have much to tell about its powerhouse of a neighbor to the south, eh?

Not so, according to historian Robert Bothwell. In this witty and accessible book, Bothwell argues that the shared history of the United States and Canada reveals more about each country than most would suspect. Your Country, My Country takes readers back to the seventeenth century, when a shared British colonial heritage set the two lands on paths that would remain intertwined to the present day. Tracing Canadian-American relations, shared values, and differences through the centuries, Bothwell suggests that Americans are neither unique nor exceptional, in terms of both their good characteristics and their bad ones. He brings this contention down to the present day by examining Canadian and American differences over such questions as universal health care in domestic policy and the Iraq war in foreign policy. What happens in Canada often reflects what has happened in the United States, but by the same token, what happens in Canada signals what could happen in its American neighbor. From whatever direction, this innovative volume contends, Canada's story illuminates America's-and vice-versa.

About this title

About the Author:

Robert Bothwell is the Gluskin Professor of Canadian History at the University of Toronto. He has written numerous books on Canadian-American relations and international history, including The Penguin History of Canada and Alliance and Illusion: Canada and the World, 1945-1984.

Review:

"[Offers] a great deal of insight on the complex history of Canada and the United States, their relations, and the evolution of borderlands. Bothwell unsettles facile assumptions of deep-rooted difference and points to an apparent historical trajectory of increasing convergence between the two nations over time."--Jon Parmenter, Journal of World History

"Bothwell writes of these two nations always clearly and sometimes with wry humor; he is a pleasure to read."--CHOICE

"Robert Bothwell's ambitious dual history of the United States and Canada throws familiar episodes and figures into new light."--Nathan M. Greenfield, Times Literary Supplement

"Valuable, ambitious, and fascinating...Canadians as well as Americans are both inheritors of what F. Scott Fitzgerald cast as the 'fresh, green breast of the new world' whose discovery was 'the last and greatest of all human dreams.' What its inhabitants have done with it so far, in somewhat different ways while still inhabiting the same essential culture, is Bothwell's fascinating story."--Jeremy Kinsman, Literary Review of Canada" -Jeremy Kinsman, Literary Review of Canada

"One could say that reciprocity is still the watchword of North American relations. Mr. Bothwell has produced a page-turner on the subject. Two grateful nations should thank him."--David M. Shribman, Wall Street Journal

"Unlike much academic history, [t]his book is one that is actually a pleasure to read."--Asa McKercher, H-Diplo

About this edition

• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Publication date: 2017
• ISBN 10: 0190840811
• ISBN 13: 9780190840815
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 432