Against the Draft: Essays on Conscientious Objection from the Radical Reformation to the Second World War

J.L. Granatstein, Distinguished Research Professor of History Emeritus,
York University, served as Director of the Canadian War Museum from 1998
to 2000. His latest works are Who Killed Canadian History?, Who Killed
the Canadian Military, and Hell’s Cor

Peter Brock, professor emeritus of history at the University of Toronto,
is the leading scholar of pacifism and conscientious objectors. His
range is enormous, as this book that gathers 25 of his essays
demonstrates. He writes knowledgably and gracefully about Polish
conscientious objectors in the 16th century, about peace sects in Upper
Canada, about Tolstoy and the jailing of conscientious objectors in
Czarist Russia, about Jehovah’s Witnesses in Nazi Germany, and much
more. The range in time and space is impressive; so too is the way Brock
admits that the evidence in some areas is thin. Other scholars might
have feigned omniscience.

Particularly interesting is the story of Britain’s dealing with
objectors during the Great and Second World Wars, notably in the way the
United Kingdom created a Non-Combatant Corps in the Great War and a
cadre of medical paratroopers in World War II. Imagine, hard-bitten
paras jumping into action without weapons and, though conscientious
objectors to a man, winning kudos for their courage under fire!

This is an absorbing collection, a tribute to one man’s scholarship,
and fascinating to read.