Lester Pearson’s Peacekeeping: The Truth May Hurt

Lester Pearson’s Peacekeeping: The Truth May Hurt
Book Launch with author and activist Yves Engler
Wednesday, April 4 (7:00 pm)
Telus Building Room 134
Corner of 111 Street & 87 Avenue, U of A Campus
(Click here for map)

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Written in the form of a submission to an imagined “Truth and Reconciliation” commission about Canada’s foreign policy past, Lester Pearson’s Peacekeeping: The Truth May Hurt will change how you think about this country’s most famous statesman. Rather than an ‘honest broker’ or ‘peacekeeper’ Pearson was an ardent cold warrior who backed colonialism and apartheid in Africa, Zionism, coups in Guatemala, Iran and Brazil, and the US invasion of the Dominican Republic. A beneficiary of US intervention in Canadian political affairs, the Nobel Peace Prize laureate provided important support to the US in Vietnam and pushed to send troops to the American-led war in Korea. Pearson helped construct the post-World War II US empire. This book challenges one of the most important (and useful) Canadian foreign policy myths.

“Canada’s Nobel Peace Prize winner and eminent statesman, Lester Pearson was a major criminal, really extreme. He didn’t have the power to be like an American president, but if he’d had it, he would have been the same. He tried.”
– Noam Chomsky, from the book’s foreword

Yves Engler has been dubbed “one of the most Important voices on the Canadian Left today” (Briarpatch), “in the mould of I. F. Stone” (Globe and Mail), “ever-insightful” (rabble.ca) and a “Leftist gadfly” (Ottawa Citizen). His six books have been praised by Naomi Klein, Noam Chomsky, William Blum, Rick Salutin and many others.

Presented by Palestine Solidarity Network-Edmonton and the Council of Canadians.

This is a free event (donations accepted), everyone welcome.

Copies of Lester Pearson’s Peacekeeping: The Truth May Hurt will be available for purchase.