National Images and United States-Canada Relations

This book explores the psychologicalcultural dimension of the United StatesCanada relationship by analyzing how each country has viewed the other. Drawing on a wide range of data, including primary sources, secondary literature, and survey research, the methodology is historical/analytical, seeking to explicate and understand how Americans and Canadians, and their elites, have viewed one another from the moment they were launched on separate trajectories, why they developed and held such ideas, and what consequences these images had for the bilateral relationship between the countries. American and Canadian images of the other have deep roots and are, in many respects, recognizably the same today as they were many decades ago. Moreover, even when anchored to important realities of the other, such images influence the perception and interpretation of events, and actions taken by the other. How Americans and Canadians have viewed each other, the sources of these ideas, the way they have been influenced by each countrys domestic politics and place within the international system, and the consequences for their bilateral relationship are among the questions examined. Interdisciplinary in approach, the book will appeal to scholars and students of political science, international relations, and history.