In the National Interest

Canada's role as world power and its sense of itself in the global landscape has been largely shaped and defined over the past 100 years by the changing policies and personalities in the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade (DFAIT).

This engaging and provocative book brings together fifteen of the country's leading historians and political scientists to discuss a century of Canada's national interests and DFAIT's role in defining and pursuing them. Accomplished and influential analysts such as Jack Granatstein, Norman Hillmer, and Nelson Michaud, are joined by rising stars like Whitney Lackenbauer, Adam Chapnick, and Tammy Nemeth in commenting on the history and future implications of Canada's foreign policy.

In the National Interest: Canadian Foreign Policy and the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, 1909-2009, gives fresh insight into the Canada First concept in the 1920s, the North American security issues in the 1930s, Canada's vision for the United Nations, early security warnings in the Arctic, the rise of the international francophone community, conflicting continental visions over energy, and Canada/U.S. policy discussions. The impact of politicians and senior bureaucrats such as O.D. Skelton, Lester B. Pearson, Marcel Cadieux, Jules Leger, Pierre Trudeau and Brian Mulroney are set against issues such as national defence, popular opinion, human rights, and energy production.

In the National Interest also provides a platform for discussion about Canada's future role on the international stage. With its unique combination of administrative and policy history, In the National Interest is in a field of its own.

Greg Donaghy is Head of the Historical Section at the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, and General Editor of its series, Documents on Canadian External Relations. He is the author of Tolerant Allies: Canada and the United States, 1963-68. Greg Donaghy is Head of the Historical Section at the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, and General Editor of its series, Documents on Canadian External Relations. He is the author of Tolerant Allies: Canada and the United States, 1963-68. Stephen J. Randall is Director of the Institute for United Policy Research at the University of Calgary. Michael K. Carroll is a Professor of History at Grant MacEwan University. He is also the author of Pearsons Peacekeepers: Canada and the United Nations Emergency Force, 1956-1967. Michael K. Carroll is a Professor of History at Grant MacEwan University. He is also the author of Pearsons Peacekeepers: Canada and the United Nations Emergency Force, 1956-1967. Norman Hillmer is Senior Historian at the Department of National Defence and Professor of History at Carleton University in Ottawa. He is the author and editor of many works on British-Canadian and imperial relations in the interwar years. Galen Roger Perras is an Associate Professor of History at the University of Ottawa. He holds an MA in War Studies from the Royal Military College of Canada and a PhD in History from the University of Waterloo. Specializing in Canadian-American relations and North American military history, he has more than 40 academic publications located in academic journals and edited monographs. His major publications include: Franklin Roosevelt and the Origins of the Canadian-American Security Alliance, 1933â1945: Necessary But Not Necessary Enough (Praeger 1998); and Stepping Stones to Nowhere: The Aleutian Islands, Alaska, and American Military Strategy, 1867â1945 (University of British Columbia Press & Naval Institute Press, 2003). The University of Ottawa selected him as an Educator of the Year in 2008â09. J.L. Granatstein, the director of the Canadian War Museum from 1998 to 2000, is a Toronto historian and the author of Who Killed the Canadian Military? . P. Whitney Lackenbauer is a professor of History at St. Jerome's University (University of Waterloo) who specializes in Arctic sovereignty and security issues, Aboriginal-state relations, circumpolar history, and modern Canadian military, diplomatic and political history. He is the editor of the multi-award-winning A Historical and Legal Study of Sovereignty in the Canadian North (UCalgary Press). Peter Kikkert recently completed his M.A. at the University of Waterloo and is a Ph.D. student in history at the University of Western Ontario.