HIST 3304A: Canada-United States Relations
Fall 2023
Instructor: Professor Norman Hillmer
The course examines Canada’s attitudes toward and relationships with the United States from the nineteenth century to the present. Students will gain a knowledge of the major impulses and milestones in the historical relationship between the two countries; an understanding of the size, shape, and structure of the relationship; a familiarity with the place and importance of the United States in Canadian life; an insight into debates about how to describe the relationship; and the ability to assess and analyse the origins, evolution, meaning, and content of “anti-Americanism.”
In 2020, when COVID-19 was raging and Donald Trump was the US president, the Washington Post wrote that the pandemic “offered no shortage of pretexts for Canadians to double down on their reliably consistent culture of crass America-bashing.” But are Canadians anti-American, and what does that term really mean? Aren’t Americans themselves the fiercest critics of the US? Aren’t Canada and the United States more similar than they are different? And is Canada dependent on the United States? If so, what are the implications of that dependence for Canadians’ self-image and independence in North America and the world? Is America dependent on Canada as well, so that interdependence is the best description of the complex relationship between the two countries of the northern part of North America? In the end, is Canada America’s twin, its partner, or its satellite? These will be among our questions as we examine the ways that Canadians have looked at the US (and the fewer times that Americans have talked about Canadians) and we inquire into the network of ties that have made the Canada-US relationship the closest one between any two countries in the world.
Students will be trained to research, write, and edit a professionally executed briefing note. The briefing note assignment asks students to develop and defend practical policy options and recommendations in an academic, policy-relevant, historical environment. Since briefing notes are frequently used in government, business, and research institutions, this assignment develops and strengthens skills as well as providing experience that is relevant to career development. The essays qualify for the Hanson Prize, a major History Department award for essays in Canadian foreign policy. Members of 3304 are often winners of the Hanson.
In previous years, the briefing note and a final examination have each been worth fifty percent of the final grade. If there is a midterm, it will be worth twenty percent of the final grade, with the briefing note and final examination each worth forty percent.
For further information and to send comments about the course, please contact Professor Norman Hillmer at norman.hillmer@carleton.ca.