Will Ferguson had a good idea, attack the unassailable image Canadians have of themselves. It takes a traveled ex pat to see that Canadians swallow a lot of their own propaganda without applying a critical eye, or at least the same critical eye they apply to Americans who stumble north. Ask an American, German, or Japanese why their country is the greatest nation on earth and they'll make references to contributions to industry/science/history/culture. Ask a Canadian and he'll point to a UN survey. Or worse, he'll phrase it in the form of "we're great because we're not like the USA in these ways..." It's a little sad and telling that the biggest example of Canadian patriotism in the last 20 years is the "I Am Canadian" beer commercial, which itself is little more than an inventory of how Canadians are different from Americans.

There's probably a very good Globe & Mail Fifth Column piece hiding in this book. As a book, however, it's over long. Ferguson pads it with utterly boring p