Canada and the First World War: Essays in Honour of Robert Craig Brown

Tim Cook is the World War I historian at the Canadian War Museum. He is
the author of No Place to Run: The Canadian Corps and Gas Warfare in the
First World War and Clio’s Warriors: Canadian Historians and the
Writing of the World Wars.

This book contains a series of excellent essays that explore the impact
of the First World War on Canada. The editor has drawn together some of
the leading scholars in the field in this Festschrift to honour R.C.
Brown, an influential University of Toronto history professor. MacKenzie
targeted a number of key thematic areas and asked that his contributors
address those issues. Although the book would have benefited from the
inclusion of one or two additional pieces on the experience of
war-fighting, most of the essays explore new ground and challenge the
accepted understanding of the war. These 15 essays consider a diversity
of attitudes toward and actions related to the war, providing insight
into themes ranging from conscription to the economy, from the
mobilization of science and families to how the war was remembered and
constructed by a generation attempting to come to grips with the loss of
more than 60,000 dead.

By re-examining old myths, by questioning and probing with new evidence
or new ways of looking at evidence, these essays collectively enrich our
understanding of how Canadians were shaped by and negotiated the
pressures of war. The war was a turning point for the young nation, but
it was not experienced uniformly, nor did it change everything in its
wake. Ongoing reassessments are always welcome, but a few of the authors
seem to go out of their way to refute the impact of the war on the
country, groups, or individuals, especially the influence of the war on
the role of women or the war’s impact on the economy. Some of the more
revisionist assessments should provoke debate among historians.

Canada and the First World War may not appeal to casual readers, but it
is an essential read for scholars and would be an ideal text for any
undergraduate course on Canada and the First World War.