It was the "Good War." Its cause was just; it ended the Depression; and Canada's contribution was nothing less than stellar. But the dark truth was that not all Canadians were saints or soldiers. Indeed, many were sinners.

The first-ever synthesis of both the patriotic and the problematic in wartime Canada, Saints, Sinners, and Soldiers shows how moral and social changes, and the fears they generated, precipitated numerous, and often contradictory, legacies in law and society. From labor conflicts, to the black market, to prostitution and beyond, Keshen acknowledges the...

One Canadian in eight volunteered to fight between 1914 and 1918 and more than half of them were enlisted. Soldiers left their families behind to the tender mercy of a tight-fisted government and the Canadian Patriotic Fund, a national charity dominated by its wealthy donors. In time, the soldiers were remembered as the sacrificial heroes who won Canada a respected place in the world. The women who paid in loneliness and poverty were as easily forgotten as their letters, soaked in blood and Flanders mud. Fight or Pay tells the story of what happened to the soldiers' families and...

Commanding Canadians is the first comprehensive personal account ? British or Canadian ? that covers the entire inshore anti-U-boat campaign in European waters during the Second World War. Rescued from the archives, the diary of Commander Arthur Layard affords the reader insights into the experiences of command at sea against German naval forces. Far from a daily chronicle, this remarkably full and honest diary outlines Layard's thoughts on his daily life and his naval career, including the strain and responsibility associated with command at sea in wartime.

As well as...

Little is known of the internment of German prisoners of war, civilians and merchant seamen on Canadian soil during the Second World War. In the midst of the most destructive conflict in human history, almost 40,000 Germans were detained in twenty-five permanent internment camps and dozens of smaller work camps located across Canada. Five of these permanent camps were located on the southern shores of the St. Lawrence River at Farnham, Grande Ligne, Ile-aux-Noix, Sherbrooke, and Sorel in the province of Quebec.

Martin Auger's book provides a fascinating insight into the internment...

Fighting from Home paints a comprehensive and, at times, intimate portrait of Verdun and Verdunites at war. Serge Durflinger offers an innovative interpretive approach towards understanding wartime Canadian and Quebec social and cultural dynamics.

In Verdun, English and French speakers lived side by side. Durflinger shows that, through their home-front activities as much as through enlistment, French-speaking Verdunites were partners beside their English-speaking neighbours in the prosecution of Canada's war. Shared experiences and class similarities facilitated the...

In January 1944, Canada's top admiral, Percy Walker Nelles, was fired from his post as head of the Royal Canadian Navy. Traditional accounts maintain that Nelles's termination was the result of severe operational deficiencies within the navy. This intriguing history reveals the true story behind Vice Admiral Nelles's dismissal: a divisive power struggle between two elite groups within the RCN -- the navy's regular officers, and a small group of self-appointed spokesmen of the voluntary naval reserve.

Richard Mayne shows how influential, but relatively junior, reserve officers were...

In January 1944, Canada's top admiral, Percy Walker Nelles, was fired from his post as head of the Royal Canadian Navy. Traditional accounts maintain that Nelles's termination was the result of severe operational deficiencies within the navy. This intriguing history reveals the true story behind Vice Admiral Nelles's dismissal: a divisive power struggle between two elite groups within the RCN -- the navy's regular officers, and a small group of self-appointed spokesmen of the voluntary naval reserve.

Richard Mayne shows how influential, but relatively junior, reserve officers were...

Base closures, use of airspace for weapons testing and low-level flying, environmental awareness, and Aboriginal land claims have focused attention in recent years on the use of Native lands for military training. But is the military's interest in Aboriginal lands new? Battle Grounds analyzes a century of government-Aboriginal interaction and negotiation to explore how the Canadian military came to use Aboriginal lands for training. It examines what the process reveals about the larger and evolving relationship between governments and Native communities, and how increasing...

Clio's Warriors examines the role of academic military history in the writing of the world wars in Canada. To elucidate the role of historians in codifying the sacrifice and struggle of a generation, Tim Cook discusses historical memory and writing, the creation of archives, and the war of reputations that followed each of the world wars.

For much of the twentieth century, official historians of the Department of National Defence controlled the tenor and focus of war writing. Training, administration, and operational war fighting remained the dominant topics. Only recently...