Whether it is birthdays, wedding anniversaries, Thanksgiving dinners or New Year’s celebrations, we humans demonstrate a peculiar compulsion to celebrate the continuing cycle of the recurrent calendar dates that mark our lives.
Public events of the same type evoke an even more pronounced response. The Anniversary Compulsion focuses on Canada’s Centennial celebrations in 1967 as an example of how a classic mega-anniversary can be successfully organized and staged.
With wit and wisdom, Peter Aykroyd describes how many of the key elements of Centennial year will undoubtedly be present in the staging of what is bound to be an unprecedented worldwide celebratory outburst – the advent of the 21st century, the Third Millennium.

Peter H. Aykroyd was director of public relations for the Centennial Commission during Canada's mega-anniversary celebration in 1967. Subsequently he served in the Privy Council Office with the rank of assistant secretary to the Cabinet, and then as assistant deputy minister, Research and Development, Transport Canada. He is chairman of the board of trustees of the Institute for 21st Century Studies, Arlington, Virginia, and a mega-anniversary consultant.

Mr. Aykroyd lives with his wife in a cedar forest beside a lake near Kingston, Ontario. Their two successful sons, Peter and Dan (who is the well-known Blues Brother, Conehead and Sneaker), both live in Los Angeles.

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