These case studies show that mobilization officials achieved only a limited number of their regulatory goals and that Ottawa's attempt to organize and allocate the nation's military and civilian human resources on a rational, orderly, and efficient scale was largely ineffective."--BOOK JACKET.

The fall of the Berlin Wall and the disintegration of the Soviet Union were only two of the many events that profoundly altered the international political system in the late 1980s and early 1990s. In a world no longer dominated by Cold War tensions, nation states have had to rethink their international roles and focus on economic rather than military concerns. This book examines how two middle powers, Australia and Canada, are grappling with the difficult process of relocating themselves in the rapidly changing international economy. The authors argue that the concept of middle power has continuing relevance in contemporary international relations theory, and they present a number of case studies to illustrate the changing nature of middle power behaviour.

Canada and the Cold War is a fascinating historical overview of a key period in Canadian history. The focus is on how Canada and Canadians responded to the Soviet Union -- and to America's demands on its northern neighbour.

Cutting through over half a century of historical build-up, this new and convincing account of World War II uses a global perspective to explain the complicated course in military terms. Black, a distinguished military historian , bucks the current trend to demilitarise and gives due weight to the campaigns and battles that made up the war. In doing so he challenges common interpretations and includes new insights to make this one of the most exciting new histories of the Second World War. Covering all the main areas of conflict, the chronological approach includes analysis of attacks at land, air and sea and a comparison of military resources. The focus is always operational, but social, cultural and political aspects are also included. Providing a crucial counterweight to previous histories, Jeremy Black's World War Two offers fresh insights into operations at the Eastern Front and during the war against Japan.

In the first and only examination of how the British Empire and Commonwealth sustained its soldiers before, during, and after both world wars, a cast of leading military historians explores how the empire mobilized manpower to recruit workers, care for veterans, and transform factory workers and farmers into riflemen. Raising armies is more than counting people, putting them in uniform, and assigning them to formations. It demands efficient measures for recruitment, registration, and assignment. It requires processes for transforming common people into soldiers and then producing officers, staffs, and commanders to lead them. It necessitates balancing the needs of the armed services with industry and agriculture. And, often overlooked but illuminated incisively here, raising armies relies on medical services for mending wounded soldiers and programs and pensions to look after them when demobilized. Manpower and the Armies of the British Empire in the Two World Wars is a transnational look at how the empire did not always get these things right. But through trial, error, analysis, and introspection, it levied the large armies needed to prosecute both wars. Contributors Paul R. Bartrop, Charles Booth, Jean Bou, Daniel Byers, Kent Fedorowich, Jonathan Fennell, Meghan Fitzpatrick, Richard S. Grayson, Ian McGibbon, Jessica Meyer, Emma Newlands, Kaushik Roy, Roger Sarty, Gary Sheffield, Ian van der Waag

We often picture life on the Canadian home front as a time of austerity, as a time when women went to work and men went to war. A Small Price to Pay, the first full-length study of consumer culture in wartime Canada, explodes this myth of home front sacrifice by bringing to light the contradictions of consumer society during the Second World War. Wartime governments pressured Depression-weary citizens to save for the sake of the nation, but Canadians had money in their pockets after years of want, and the fantasy realm of advertisements promised them fresh groceries, glamorous movies, and new cars and appliances. Graham Broad reveals that our “greatest generation” was not impervious to temptation but rather embarked on one of the biggest spending booms in our nation’s history. Cutting through the fog of patriotic enthusiasm, this richly illustrated book reveals that the consumer-spending boom of the 1950s and 1960s was not a “postwar” phenomenon after all.

An accessible and empirically rich introduction to Canada’s engagements in the world since confederation, this book charts a unique path by locating Canada’s colonial foundations at the heart of the analysis. Canada in the World begins by arguing that the colonial relations with Indigenous peoples represent the first example of foreign policy, and demonstrates how these relations became a foundational and existential element of the new state. Colonialism—the project to establish settler capitalism in North America and the ideological assumption that Europeans were more advanced and thus deserved to conquer the Indigenous people—says Shipley, lives at the very heart of Canada. Through a close examination of Canadian foreign policy, from crushing an Indigenous rebellion in El Salvador, “peacekeeping” missions in the Congo and Somalia, and Cold War interventions in Vietnam and Indonesia, to Canadian participation in the War on Terror, Canada in the World finds that this colonial heart has dictated Canada’s actions in the world since the beginning. Highlighting the continuities across more than 150 years of history, Shipley demonstrates that Canadian policy and behaviour in the world is deep-rooted, and argues that changing this requires rethinking the fundamental nature of Canada itself.