This volume covers the Free Trade Agreement with the United States and Mexico; Canada's policy towards South Africa; growing peacekeeping efforts around the world; and common international problems such as immigration, drug trafficking, and the impact of trade, aid and human rights on foreign policy. Speeches are by political personalities such as Pierre Trudeau, Joe Clark, Barbara McDougall, MacDonald and Brian Mulroney.

Aronsen draws on recently declassified documents in Ottawa and Washington to provide a reassessment of Canada's special relationship with the U.S. Toward this end, detailed new information is provided about Canada's contribution to the creation of the postwar economic order from the Bretton Woods Agreement to GATT. Canada's cooperation was rewarded by special economic concessions including the extension of the Hyde Park agreement in 1945, the inclusion of the off-shore purchases clause to the Marshall Plan, and Article II of the NATO Treaty. After the outbreak of the Korean War, Canada's resources played a crucial role in the production of weapons systems for the new air/atomic strategic doctrine. Several policies were adopted to facilitate the expansion of Canadian defense production, notably the relaxation of regulations on technology transfer; the encouragement of private sector investment; and the negotiation of long-term contracts at above-market prices. In the midst of these unprecendented peacetime developments Time Magazine observed that Canada had become America's Indispensable Ally.

When Mackenzie King went to the San Francisco Conference he told the Commons that Canada had played its part in winning the war and it was now its duty to play a part in 'the shaping of peace.' This is a history and analysis of Canadian participation in the peace settlement and in the establishment of the United Nations and other international institutions, written by a man who was in the Department of External Affairs at the time. Although the book records the principal events, its emphasis is on the ideas and basic philosophies which Canada applied to the world scene in these years. The first of two volumes deals with postwar planning in Ottawa, the institutions which were created before the war ended, and Canada's part in settling the war, both in relief and reconstruction and in the peace treaties. It describes the shifting relations with Britain and the United States, including new defence and economic relationships, the working of the 'atomic triad,' and the postwar Commonwealth. It concludes with an extended discussion of Canada's part in the preparations for San Francisco and in the conference itself, with reference both to political and security issues and the economic and social functions involved. A second volume will describe Canada's attitudes as the cold war developed, the shifts in NATO, the experiences of the Korean War, and the evolution of middle-power diplomacy in the 1950s. John Holmes' well-informed account of 'the shaping of peace' is the first to provide a comprehensive overview of what has been regarded as Canada's most creative initiative in international affairs.