Michael Ignatieff, leader of Canada's Liberal Party and a candidate for Prime Minister whenever the next elections are held, obviously hopes this book will be his version of Barack Obama's "Dreams from my Father". It doesn't quite make it, perhaps because nothing in Canadian political life approaches the emotive drama of race and the role it plays in the United States. Still, it's an intriguing and compelling book.

First of all, Ignatieff knows what he's talking about when he opines on nationalism in the opening and closing sections of the book, which bracket three biographical sketches of his maternal ancestors, members of the Grant family. He's seen the ugly side of nationalism in the Balkans, and has written some interesting and thoughtful books on the subject, such as "Blood and Belonging." None of his comments are tremendously revelatory, however; it's pretty much standard fare to describe Canada as poised between an economic and a historic/cultural fact; ties to the US competing with ties to the now-defunct British Empire. The challenge is in forging an identity that doesn't rely on absolute rejection or an absolute embrace of either, but is distinctively Canadian. Not surprisingly, Ignatieff is better at highlighting the questions than on providing answers.

Still, what is here in the biographical sections turns out to be more insightful than I had imagined. George Munro Grant played a key role in helping to forge east-west ties that might unite Canada by traveling across Canada (by steamer, canoe and horseback) shortly after Confederation in the 1870s, clearing the way for the construction of the trans-Canada railway. His son, William, went on to be a big supporter of the Empire and Canada's role within it, only to emerge as a champion of a strong Canada with an independent voice in the wake of the First World War. William's son -- and Ignatieff's uncle -- George Grant, became a key public intellectual during the 1960s, when debates over Canada's ties to the United States reached fever pitch. Was Canada nothing more than a branch plant economy and political satellite? In "Lament of a Nation", Grant answered yes, firmly.

The third segment is the least successful, perhaps because shadows of a family rift between George and his sister, Ignatieff's mother, hang over it in ways that make Ignatieff visibly uncomfortable discussing it. It's also still an emotive issue within Canada in the wake of the war with Afghanistan, and Ignatieff's reaction to it has to take into consideration the fact that he could become Canada's political leader, in a position where his words will come back to haunt him as he tries to forge a working relationship with the United States -- a country over which Canada has far less influence than its political or economic importance would indicate it might.

While some have criticized this book for not addressing what it means to be a Canadian in today's Canada, I don't think that is what Ignatieff set out to accomplish. Rather, he is wrestling with the legacy of these other defining Canadian institutions -- the transnational railroad and the Empire -- in the context of today. He's not trying to define Canadian nationalism in high-falutin' terms, but in the terms that any nation state must to retain authority in a globalized world: is there something about Canada, the concept, that attracts loyalty and love, that makes it worthwhile for its citizens above and beyond simply having a government that delivers services. (Certainly, elsewhere in the world, from Kurdistan to the Basque region, people are fighting to have a nation; a status that Canada has and sometimes doesn't know quite how to deal with.) How his Grant ancestors answered the question in the past may inform Canadians' future answers.

The obvious audience for this book are the Canadians who may be called on to vote his party into power. Nonetheless, this would make an excellent introduction to Canada for any American who doesn't have a clue of their northern neighbor's history. (As most don't...) That history is combined with a sense of the experiences that have forged a distinct sense of being Canadian in the past and even an understanding of certain concepts (Canadians have the words "peace, order and good government" in their founding government, whereas in the US it's "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness") that produce policies that flummox Americans. It's also a reminder that the American model of patriotism is not the only one, even as a patriotism based on anti-Americanism is not a sustainable one. ( )

Ignatieff's Canadianness

Written and framed to coincide with his official coronation as the leader of the Liberal Party of Canada in May 2009, True Patriot Love is a historical biography of Michael Ignatieff's maternal side of his family.

It is clear what Ignatieff hopes to achieve politically through this book, that Ignatieff his roots go as far back as John A. Macdonald -- deep enough to go as far as the reformers of the 1830s. I will give credit to Ignatieff, the book succeeds as much.

As a historical biography though, the book falls woefully short. In reading "True Patriot Love" one wonders why Ignatieff completely ignores the women of the Grants (Ignatieff's maternal family name) whom he presumes us to believe had no role whatsoever in the development of his family. If Ignatieff's choices of whom he focuses his attention on is a reflection on him, then Ignatieff wants to be seen as the stiff academic patriarch who prances around in privileged elite circles, the all-male Upper Canada College clique.

In my opinion, Ignatieff fundamentally misreads what it means to be Canadian in today's Canada. More than half of Canada's current citizenry came after World War II. What binds us as Canadians has less to do with the political and much more to do with the cultural. In other words, hockey is heck of a lot more important than the War in Afghanistan. Canadians could care less about an empty idea of Canadian nationalism and instead care more about a government that actually works, that can deliver the services that we need in a timely fashion.

I've read several of Ignatieff's books including "Russian Album" which were all outstanding. I'm very disappointed to say that "True Patriot Love" falls far short of my expectations of Ignatieff. ( )