Transatlantica

It’s obvious to everyone by now that Canadians don’t have a National Identity. Like the Empress in “Woman without a Shadow,” we are condemned to an incomplete and indistinct existence, while philosophers and talk show hosts search for the link, the force which could bind and explain us all. Visions of this missing element appear from time to time, but they all turn out to be partial, tentative, giving rise to more questions. It’s very frustrating.

Those who dream of hearing the last word on the subject must settle for the latest word, which comes to us currently in the form of a 90-page essay by the well-known political scientist Philip Resnick. Mr. Resnick bursts from the same starting gate that has attracted so many of his contemporaries—“What, if anything,” he asks, “makes us different from the Americans?” But his answer is a new one—at least, it feels new. He says we can understand who we really are if we look to our European roots; if we see ourselves as a bit...