Prejudice and Pride: Canadian Intellectuals Confront the United States, 1891-1945

As a country with enormous economic, military, and cultural power, the United States can seem an overwhelming neighbour - one that demands consideration by politicians, thinkers, and cultural figures. Prejudice and Pride examines and compares how English and French Canadian intellectuals viewed American society from 1891 to 1945.

Based on over five hundred texts drawn largely from the era’s periodical literature, the study reveals that English and French Canadian intellectuals shared common preoccupations with the United States, though the English tended to emphasize political issues and the French cultural issues. Damien-Claude Belanger’s in-depth analysis of anti-American sentiment during this era divides Canadian thinkers less along language lines and more according to their political stance as right-wing, left-wing, or centrist. Significantly, the era’s discourse regarding American life and the Canadian-American relationship was less an expression of nationalism or a reaction to US policy than it was about the expression of wider attitudes concerning modernity.