The United States began life as a bold confidence trick. The British had skillfully played the balance of power in continental Europe from the rise of the nation-state in the 16th century, enabling them to focus on maritime strength and to build and maintain a greater overseas empire than their continental rivals. This enabled them to remove the French from Canada and assure the security of the American colonists, but British national debt rose from £75 million to £133 million in the Seven Years War (1756–1763). The Americans had almost 40 percent of the population of Great Britain and a higher standard of living; and when the British tried, very clumsily, to get the chief beneficiaries of the removal of the French from Canada to help pay for it, the Americans splendidly improvised the argument that they would not be taxed unless they voted for it themselves (which no sane people ever does unless it has to).He also believes "guarantees of due process and access to impartial justice have been shredded" there.
In the same issue of The Literary Review of Canada, Ken McGoogan celebrates Farley Mowat, recalling his misadventures at the American border, and defending his controversial works as "creative" non-fiction.
