Conrad Black

D oing the Continental: A New Canadian-American Relationship is a useful but somewhat portentous little book that immodestly bills itself as “a new and sensible basis for making decisions and taking steps towards doing our dance with the U.S. differently.” David Dyment assures us: “That a political scientist would write a book that includes himself is understandable … I sought to understand Canada and Quebec by learning French in my twenties and doing a…

Margaret Atwood’s Payback: Debt and the Shadow Side of Wealth is a very provocative reconciliation of moral with financial indebtedness, and of the need to repay debts—especially when they have the character of penalties for previous misconduct—with severe consequences for not paying them back. She lays out a learned but never pedantic or turgid cultural history of the evolution of debt to…