The Gaullist attack on Canada, 1967-1997 /

Bosher (York Univ.), a distinguished student of the ancien regime, discusses French meddling in Canadian affairs, a continuing phenomenon since the 1960s. Bosher is a long way out of his field, to be sure, but he has tracked down some splendid sources, including the hitherto closed papers of Canadian diplomat Marcel Cadieux, and he makes a compelling, if not wholly convincing, case concerning French activities and the reasons behind them. Essentially, Bosher argues, Gaullist hatred of the Anglo-Saxons drives the French efforts, and Paris, seeing Canada as in Washington's pocket, hopes to split off Quebec into an independent French-speaking state. What this might do to Quebec, let alone Canada, scarcely crosses the French mind, according to Bosher. That roughly 100,000 Canadians--the vast majority English-speaking--died to liberate France in two world wars matters not a whit; that Quebec opinion in WW II was heavily Petainist is similarly immaterial. Raisons d'etat, misguided though they may be, explain much. Bosher's account is perhaps more conspiratorial in tone than it needs to be, but it succeeds nonetheless. Perhaps it will be translated into French and sold in Quebec City and Paris, where it might have some impact. General readers; graduate, faculty. J. L. Granatstein York University