Key insiders from the Trudeau era offer behind-the-scenes insights into his foreign, trade, and defence policies, revealing them in a new – and clear – light.
Pierre Trudeau and most of his contemporaries at home and abroad are now dead. This book offers reflections on Canadian foreign, trade, and defence policies from interviews conducted more than three decades ago with key policy makers, diplomats, and military officers in the Trudeau government and of that era.
The interviews are informative and revealingly frank. There is much on the enormous difficulties in dealing with the United States, Europe, NATO, the Soviet Union, and Communist China in an era dominated by the Cold War. There are also personal insights into Trudeau himself – a man of great “esprit,” who initially seemed destined to change Canadian policy in a dramatic fashion. Over time, however, this was not to be, and his government policies reverted towards the norm.
A unique resource, Trudeau’s World adds immeasurably to our understanding of the Trudeau era. It also has much to tell us about Canada and the world from 1968 to 1984.
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This monograph will be well-received by scholars and graduate students alike in history and political science. It will also be a useful source for undergraduate students in Canadian foreign policy courses. The interviews fuse together large themes in the history of Canadian international affairs while they also remind us that their work stands the test of time.
" - Left History, Vol. 22, No. 1
"Trudeau's World does three things very well: 1) It examines the complex and multi-layered workings of the government; 2) it focuses on and attempts to give clarity to several issues of the period that had foreign policy or military dimensions; and 3) it provides insider glimpses of that attractive but inscrutable figure, Trudeau... The book's strength comes from the interviews with people who worked with [Trudeau]." - Manitoba History, No. 90
