Kowtowing to the Hegemon

The back cover of In Roosevelt’s Bright Shadow: Presidential Addresses about Canada from Taft to Obama in Honour of FDR’s 1938 Speech at Queen’s University displays a picture of Peter Milliken, speaker of the House of Commons, presenting a special prepublication copy of the self same book to President Barack Obama in the splendidly restored Parliamentary Library when he visited Ottawa last year. Obama then received a second copy later that day from member of Parliament Bob Rae.

The book contains the speeches given by American presidents in Canada and Canadian prime ministers in the United States, and the careful editing by journalist-scholar Arthur Milnes gives readers the continuum of the relationship for the last century. Published by McGill-Queen’s University Press in honour of Franklin Roosevelt’s 1938 speech at Queen’s University, it is another addition to the Centre for the Study of Democracy’s Library of Political Leadership. In its 227 pages are...