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Studies in Canadian Military History
Canada 1919

Canada 1919

A Nation Shaped by War

Edited by Tim Cook and J.L. Granatstein

Published by: University of British Columbia Press

Series: Studies in Canadian Military History

Imprint: UBC Press

338 Pages, 152.00 × 229.00 mm, 23 photos, 2 illus., b&w

Paperback
9780774864084
Published: March 2021

£26.99

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Description
Contents
Authors
Praise

With compelling insight, Canada 1919 examines the year following the Great War, as the survivors attempted to right the country and chart a path into the future.

Veterans returned home full of both sorrow and pride in their accomplishments, wondering what would they do and how they would fit in with their families. The military stumbled through massive demobilization. The government struggled to hang on to power. And a new Canadian nationalism was forged.

This book offers a fresh perspective on the concerns of the time: the treatment of veterans, including nurses and Indigenous soldiers; the place of children; the influenza pandemic; the rising farm lobby; the role of labour; Canada's international standing; and commemoration of the fallen. Canada 1919 exposes the ways in which war shaped and changed Canada – and the ways it did not.

Introduction / Tim Cook and J.L. Granatstein

1 The Long 1919: Hope, Fear, and Normalcy / Alan Bowker

2 Coming Home: How the Soldiers of Canada and Newfoundland Came Back / Dean F. Oliver

3 "Playing With Fire": Canadian Repatriation and the Riots of 1919 / William F. Stewart

4 New Battlegrounds: Treating VD in Belgium and Germany, 1918-19 / Lyndsay Rosenthal

5 "L'honneur de notre race": The 22nd Battalion Returns to Quebec City, 1919 / Serge Marc Durflinger

6 Demobilization and Colonialism: Indigenous Homecomings in 1919 / Brian R. MacDowall

7 Victory at a Cost: General Currie's Contested Legacy / Tim Cook

8 Dealing with the Wounded: The Evolution of Care on the Home Front to 1919 / Kandace Bogaert

9 In Death's Shadow: The 1918-19 Influenza Pandemic and War in Canada / Mark Osborne Humphries

10 The Winnipeg General Strike of 1919: The Role of the Veterans / David Jay Bercuson

11 The Group of Seven and the First World War: The Burlington House Exhibition / Laura Brandon

12 Domestic Demobilization: Letters from the Children's Page / Kristine Alexander

13 "At Peace with the Germans, but at War with the Germs:" Canadian Nurse Veterans after the First World War / Mélanie Morin-Pelletier

14 A Timid Transformation: The First World War's Legacy on Canada's Federal Government / Jeff Keshen

15 Politics Undone: The End of the Two Party System / J.L. Granatstein

16 Growing Up Autonomous: Canada and Britain through the First World War and into the Peace / Norman Hillmer

17 Past Futures: Military Plans of the Canadian and Other Dominion Armies in 1919 / Douglas E. Delaney

18 The Navy Reborn, an Air Force Created? The Making of Canadian Defence Policy, 1919 / Roger Sarty

19 "Our Gallant Employees": Corporate Commemoration in Postwar Canada / Jonathan F. Vance

Conclusion / Tim Cook and J.L. Granatstein

Selected Bibliography; Index

Tim Cook is the First World War historian at the Canadian War Museum, a Member of the Order of Canada, and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. His eleven books include prize-winning studies of the Great War and the Second World War and an analysis of the memory of the 1917 victory at Vimy Ridge. J.L. Granatstein is Distinguished Research Professor of History Emeritus at York University, and a former director and CEO of the Canadian War Museum. He has served on various government commissions, and his many publications include prize-winning studies of Canadian wartime politics, diplomacy, and the nation's military history. He is an Officer of the Order of Canada, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, and has seven honorary degrees.

Contributors: Kristine Alexander, David Jay Bercuson, Kandace Bogaert, Alan Bowker, Laura Brandon, Douglas E. Delaney, Serge Marc Durflinger, Norman Hillmer, Mark Osborne Humphries, Jeff Keshen, Brian R. MacDowall, Mélanie Morin-Pelletier, Dean F. Oliver, Lyndsay Rosenthal, Roger Sarty, William Stewart, Jonathan F. Vance

This work is fantastic, and the breadth of topics covered truly gives the reader a rich flavor of the issues facing not just Canada, but global democracies at the end of the First World War.
- Marc Sanko, Clarion University of Pennsylvania (American Review of Canadian Studies)
All the articles are short and highly readable and provide multiple notes for further research that will prove useful to beginning researchers.
- S. Perreault (CHOICE Connect)
Altogether, this is a fascinating collection of papers and recommended reading for anyone interested in the history of Canada's role in the Great War.
- Jim Blanchard, Librarian Emeritus, University of Manitoba (Prairie History)
"Cook and Granatstein's volume offers a rich selection of interpretations from scholars of the World War I period…"
- Andrew Iarocci, Western University (University of Toronto Quarterly.) This collection of essays by established historians and emerging scholars, based on a 2019 conference at the Canadian War Museum, provides a richly detailed, if not quite comprehensive, portrait of Canada on the precipice of modernity. - Jack Cunningham, Trinity College, University of Toronto (Histoire Sociale)
"I recommend this edited collection to anyone who wants to understand the immediate and long-lasting legacies—both positive and negative—of the First World War on Canada."
- Brittany C. Dunn, Wilfred Laurier University (Ontario Historical Society Review) Canada 1919 is highly recommended to all those interested in the history of early twentieth-century Canada, World War I, and the medical and social history of the period. - David Zimmerman, Department of History, University of Victoria (University of Toronto Quarterly)