Oh, Canada. The Yanks Are Not Likely To Invade
BOOK REVIEW: Shadows of Tyranny: Defending Democracy in An Age of Dictatorship
By Ken McGoogan, Douglas & McIntyre
Reviewed by: Bill Rapp
The Reviewer — Bill Rapp holds a Ph.D. in European History and taught at Iowa State University before joining the CIA. He served over 35 years as an analyst, diplomat, and senior executive before retiring as a member of the Senior Intelligence Service in 2017. He continues to work part-time for the Agency as a consultant and trainer and was awarded the Distinguished Career Intelligence Medal upon his retirement. Bill also has a fictional five-book Cold War Thriller series, with the sixth book, Assignment in Saigon, due out in March 2025.
REVIEW — Ken McGoogan, an independent journalist and popular historian in Canada, is worried about the future. His concerns revolve primarily around two issues: the possibility of an autocratic dictatorship in the United States under Donald Trump; and the inability of so many in this country—as well as his own—to see the dangers this poses to the United States, Western democracies, and Canada in particular. In his book, Shadows of Tyranny, he looks to a series of personal histories from the last century to illustrate how the threat to democratic governance arose in Europe and how a few courageous and insightful individuals tried to highlight that threat and worked to prevent it from becoming reality.
McGoogan takes the reader through the experiences of an array of Europeans and North Americans who began to recognize the dangers inherent in the right-wing political movements at a time of upheaval after the First World War, during the Depression, the Spanish Civil War, and World War II, all of which provided fertile ground for the growth of right- and left-wing autocracies in Europe and beyond. He illustrates the short-sightedness of many who either misinterpreted those dynamics, tried to wish them away, or simply surrendered to them. He cites the unfortunate quotation about those who fail to learn from the past being condemned to repeat it, a phrase attributed at times to a collection of political and literary luminaries such as Winston Churchill, Karl Marx, Leon Trotsky, and George Santayana. Regardless of who actually coined the phrase, just about any self-respecting historian will say that it is wrong. Every epoch or period in history is unique, with its own set of factors contributing to a specific dynamic and outcome.
There are, however, parallels with the past, some of them quite disturbing in this case. McGoogan’s biographical approach to this particular episode in twentieth-century European and North American history is well-researched and easily readable. His examples from the past include an impressive list of actors, such as Winston Churchill, Andre Malraux, Dorothy Thompson, Martha Gellhorn, George Orwell, Jack London, Hannah Arendt, as well as villains like Joe McCarthy, Roy Cohn, and Ezra Pound.
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There are numerous Canadians in this pantheon as well. It includes Norman Bethune, Mathew Hallton, William Stephenson, Lord Beaverbrook, and Mackenzie King, Canada’s longest-serving prime minister, a principal appeaser who made the unfortunate comparison of Adolf Hitler with Joan of Arc. One guesses that his purpose here, aside from including additional and often admirable actors in this historical drama, is to inform his Canadian audience that their compatriots played important—if not always helpful—roles during these tumultuous years. However, he includes several individuals who, while displaying tremendous courage and commitment to the liberation of Europe from the Nazis, appeared to have little part in the foresight and warnings that are critical to his theme. Nonetheless, Canadians apparently need to be prepared for more of the same.
This period and the material have been covered thoroughly by professional and popular historians over the years, and one wonders what McGoogan can bring to an examination of these developments that would be new. Yours truly remembers having to wade through a pile of academic studies in this very field during his years in graduate school, studies that seemed to exhaust the need for further examinations of the phenomenon of fascist and communist dictatorships. Hence, his biographical approach, which at times does deliver a fresh and more personal perspective. There is also his message.
Unfortunately, this also obstructs a more complete understanding of the dynamics and how they may or may not apply to current developments. For example, his review of postwar American history focuses exclusively on Joe McCarthy and Donald Trump. To be sure, there are worrisome parallels there, but he refers to McCarthy’s exposure as a fraud and pathological liar only briefly, ignoring the forces in American society that undermined his campaign and deceit—and that, one hopes, still exist today. True, there are parallels. But there are also dissimilarities, and cause for optimism.
Perhaps his biggest shortcoming is that he takes so seriously the prospect of a Trump-led invasion of Canada if he does recapture the Oval Office. This idea comes from right-wing media darling Tucker Carlson, who bandied the notion as a way to “liberate” our northern neighbors from the tyranny of a Trudeau regime that had imposed a vaccine and mask mandate on the population. Where, he asks in the final chapter, is the modern-day Churchill his country needs?
Shadows of Tyranny earns a respectable 2.5 out of 4 trench coats
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