The Continental Quickstep

In the introduction to Does North America Exist? Governing the Continent after NAFTA and 9/11, Stephen Clarkson relates how, over the several years he worked on this long investigation of the effects of the North American Free Trade Agreement on our continental life together, his “nearest and dearest” took to calling it his “big, boring book.” I’m sorry, but with all due respect to Professor Clarkson, who has written several books—especially when his co-author was the late Christina McCall—that were big and not at all boring, when an author provides a reviewer with an opening like that, it is almost professional negligence not to use it. At 471 pages of text and 83 pages of notes, plus an index, this is indeed a big book. I’m sorry to say I did not find it a very interesting one.

In part, the problem is the fragility of the premise. North America obviously does exist. We all learned about it in grade school. Many of us have since visited many parts of it...