Every year, a new book emerges that seeks to “rethink Canada’s place in the world.” Inevitably, as someone who studies and writes about international affairs, I do my part, buy a copy and settle in for the nearly inevitable slog.
There is nothing wrong with these books, per se. The authors are often colleagues and friends. Most are written in a smart and accessible manner. They discuss all the big world issues I personally care about—conflict, peacebuilding, development, the United Nations, our relationship with the United States and so on. They prescribe thoroughly reasonable courses of action. They are sometimes even marginally provocative. But they invariably leave me wanting.
Perhaps it is the nostalgia for a golden age of Liberal Canadian foreign policy, when Pearson saved the Suez or Axworthy led on landmines or a small group of elites managed our engagement with the world. Perhaps it is the hyperbole surrounding Canada’s impact in the...
Taylor Owen is a professor of digital media and global affairs at the University of British Columbia, a senior fellow at the Columbia Journalism School and author of Disruptive Power: The Crisis of the State in the Digital Age.
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