As editor-in-chief of the London Journal of Canadian Studies, I am very pleased to present this special issue of the journal that revisits John Bartlet Brebner’s classic work – published some eighty years ago in 1945 – on the notion of a ‘North Atlantic triangle’, in which Canada was positioned between, and largely beholden to, Britain and the United States. Those days may be gone but the embers of a ‘North Atlantic triangle’ – for example, within NATO – arguably linger on and the debate over the validity and significance of the ‘triangle’ concept shows little sign of ending.
I am also delighted that Lara C. A. Silver has taken on the role of guest editor for this issue of the journal. Lara had just begun her PhD studies at the University of Kent at the time of the Canterbury conference on the North Atlantic Triangle in 2004 and she attended both that event and the subsequent seminar at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies, University of London, that continued the discussion. Brebner’s work and its critics influenced her PhD 2012 thesis, which emerged successfully as ‘Canada’s Role in International Relations: Through a Triangular Lens’. Now a member of the History Department at the University of British Columbia, she has focused her research on Brebner’s career and writings and is in contact with his granddaughter, Elizabeth Elliot-Meisel, who has continued the family tradition as an historian of Canadian–American relations.
