Two Solitudes Lost: Comparing and Contrasting Interwar American and Canadian Isolationisms

For many Americans during the 1930s, participation in real and potential foreign conflicts was a national dilemma as serious as the Great Depression. As the decade progressed and the possibility of war loomed larger, an ideological battle ensued between two loosely formed yet bitterly hostile camps: one favoring unilateral isolation and the other for a more active role in the international system. This period of intense public debate about national foreign policy was not an American phenomenon, though. It had a distinct northern counterpart in Canada. The core of this project is to explore isolationism as an ideology of North American themes within national varieties. Comparing an American and a Canadian example of this mindset brings a broader perspective to a subject so commonly associated with the United States alone, revealing both cross-border commonalities and national differentiations.