In 1898, Spanish spies based in Montreal, Halifax, and Victoria monitored the United States war effort against their homeland, while U.S. counter-intelligence officials watched the Spaniards. Neither the Americans nor the Spaniards sought Canadian permission for these activities. Britain's enemies (and often America's enemies) have also been Canada's enemies. Without the heroic counter-intelligence of the mysterious Agent X, Irish Americans at the turn of the century might have blasted British Columbia's legislature and the Esquimalt naval base the way they blasted the Welland Canal. During World War I, counter-intelligence failed to stop German agents who bombed the Windsor-Walkerville area as well as the CPR bridge on the Maine-New Brunswick border. Meanwhile, Canadian security officials ran around in a state of frantic frustration because of German "conspiracies" along the Ontario-New York State border imagined by Sir Courtney bennett, British consul-general in New york City. After the war, American moles in a Latvian post office monitored mail between Canadian Communists and Moscow. In the thirties, a Finnish-Canadian clergyman spied on Sudbury's Red Finns for the United States consultate inNorth Bay, and Hitler's consuls maintained surveillance of Canadian politicians and German dissidents in Canada. During World War II, Canadian authorities intercepted the mail of envoys from Vichy-France, suspected of spying for Germany, and from Franco's Spain, suspected of spying for Japan. In the 1960s, the CIA not only observed Cubans in Canada, but also watched the situation in Quebec and used a Canadian diplomat to collect information on North Vietnam. Some of this history has merged from previously ignored and newly declassified documents from European, American, and Canadian archives. These newly revealed details show that Canada is an interesting place, both for what Canadians do elsewhere and for what foreigners do in Canada. Also, once readers have seen the kinds of activities in which friends engage, they may be less surprised at what enemies have done.

Enemies Within is the first study of its kind to examine not only the formulation and uneven implementation of internment policy, but the social and gender history of internment. It brings together national and international perspectives.

Would you believe that RCMP operatives used to spy on Tupperware parties? In the 1950s and ’60s they did. They also monitored high school students, gays and lesbians, trade unionists, left-wing political groups, feminists, consumer’s associations, Black activists, First Nations people, and Quebec sovereigntists. The establishment of a tenacious Canadian security state came as no accident. On the contrary, the highest levels of government and the police, along with non-governmental interests and institutions, were involved in a concerted campaign. The security state grouped ordinary Canadians into dozens of political stereotypes and labelled them as threats. Whose National Security? probes the security state’s ideologies and hidden agendas, and sheds light on threats to democracy that persist to the present day. The contributors’ varied approaches open up avenues for reconceptualizing the nature of spying.

This graphic history tells the story of Canada’s first national internment operations through the eyes of John Boychuk, an internee held in Kapuskasing from 1914 to 1917. The story is based on Boychuk’s actual memoir, which is the only comprehensive internee testimony in existence. The novel follows Boychuk from his arrest in Toronto to Kapuskasing, where he spends just over three years. It details the everyday struggle of the internees in the camp, including forced labour and exploitation, abuse from guards, malnutrition, and homesickness. It also documents moments of internee agency and resistance, such as work slowdowns and stoppages, hunger strikes, escape attempts, and riots. Little is known about the lives of the incarcerated once the paper trail stops, but Enemy Alien subsequently traces Boychuk’s parole, his search for work, his attempts to organize a union, and his ultimate settlement in Winnipeg. Boychuk’s reflections emphasize the much broader context in which internment takes place. This was not an isolated incident, but rather part and parcel of Canadian nation building and the directives of Canada’s settler colonial project.

Focusing on these and other thematic issues, Bohdan Kordan assesses the policy and practice of civilian internment in Canada during the Great War and provides a clear yet critical statement about the complex and troubling nature of this experience. Period photographs and first person accounts augment the text, helping to communicate not only the layered and textured character of the experience but the human drama of the story as well. A comprehensive roster identifying those interned in the frontier camps of the Rocky Mountains is also included.

Friends and Enemies presents a collection of essays on Canadian foreign policy written by J.L. Granatstein, one of the leading political and military historians in the country. The essays cover a period primarily from the Second World War through to the early 2000s and examine policy under prime ministers Mackenzie King, Louis St. Laurent, John Diefenbaker, Lester Pearson, and Pierre Trudeau. Based on interviews and extensive archival research, the essays reveal how Granatstein’s views shifted as he reacted to altered conditions in Canada, Canadian alliances, and the world situation.

To understand the turnaround in Spain’s stance towards Japan during World War II, this book goes beyond mutual contacts and explains through images, representations, and racism why Madrid aimed at declaring war on Japan but not against the III Reich -as London ironically replied when it learned of Spain’s warmongering against one of the Axis members.