Book excerpt: It is hard to imagine a person who embodied the ideals of postwar Canadian foreign policy more than John Wendell Holmes. Holmes joined the foreign service in 1943, headed the Canadian Institute of International Affairs from 1960 to 1973, and, as a professor of international relations, mentored a generation of students and scholars. This book charts the life of a diplomat and public intellectual who influenced both how scholars and statespeople abroad viewed Canada and how Canadians saw themselves on the world stage.