The historian Greg Marquis discusses his new book John Lennon, Yoko Ono and the Year Canada Was Cool (Lorimer, 2020), with Joseph Planta.

John Lennon, Yoko Ono and the Year Canada Was Cool by Greg Marquis (Lorimer, 2020). Click to buy this book from Amazon.ca: John Lennon, Yoko Ono and the Year Canada Was Cool

Text of introduction by Joseph Planta:

I am Planta: On the Line, in Vancouver, British Columbia, at TheCommentary.ca.

The historian Greg Marquis joins me again. He’s just published a new book John Lennon, Yoko Ono and the Year Canada Was Cool. It’s a marvelous look at Lennon and Ono, their cultural significance and popularity, as well as what Canada was like in the late 1960s. It really was changing, and that was no better demonstrated than in the emergence of Pierre Trudeau on the national scene. Marquis looks at Trudeau’s image and how the spirit of the centennial year in 1967 propelled him into higher office, and the country into a seemingly bright future. Greg does a very fine job at showing us the confluence of all of this in Canada, what with the wider context of conflict in Southeast Asia, and how resisters of the Vietnam War were coming up against the establishment in the United States and elsewhere. This is all a very exciting and tense time in the world, and in this country it would all change by 1970, especially in the fall of that year with the October Crisis. The book also looks at music in Canada, and the vibrant scenes across the country as well. Greg Marquis is a Professor in the Department of History and Politics at the University of New Brunswick at Saint John. He was first on this program in 2016 when his book on Truth and Honour: The Death of Richard Oland and The Trial of Dennis Oland was released. This new book is published Lorimer. Please welcome back to the Planta: On the Line program, Greg Marquis; Professor Marquis, good morning.

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