The First World War was the cause of dramatic changes in every Canadian community. What it meant to daily life becomes clear in this book about the war years in Guelph, Ontario. The first months were the easiest, as young men rushed to enlist. Once news of casualties and deaths started arriving, the atmosphere changed drastically. Mothers dreaded the arrival of the telegraph boy. Newspapers published fulsome obituaries which could not obscure the tragedy of their deaths. Tensions emerged — one compelling example being a secret military and police night-time raid on a Catholic seminary just outside the town, looking for young men hiding from conscription. With these stories, Edward Butts offers a compelling portrait of people trying to make sense of a war with little evident logic. His account helps explain why the cause of the League of Nations and efforts to ensure peace in the 1920s and 1930s were so powerful amongst Canadians who had learned about the real impact of wartime on ordinary people. Through the use of primary resources including articles from the local press, letters from overseas, and newsreels in the cinema, Butts captures the reality of the First World War for Canadians at home.

There have been thousands of books on the Great War, but most have focused on commanders, battles, strategy, and tactics. Less attention has been paid to the daily lives of the combatants, how they endured the unimaginable conditions of industrial warfare: the rain of shells, bullets, and chemical agents. In The Secret History of Soldiers, Tim Cook, Canada's foremost military historian, examines how those who survived trench warfare on the Western Front found entertainment, solace, relief, and distraction from the relentless slaughter. These tales come from the soldiers themselves, mined from the letters, diaries, memoirs, and oral accounts of more than five hundred combatants. Rare examples of trench art, postcards, and even song sheets offer insight into a hidden society that was often irreverent, raunchy, and anti-authoritarian. Believing in supernatural stories was another way soldiers shielded themselves from the horror. While novels and poetry often depict the soldiers of the Great War as mere victims, this new history shows how the soldiers pushed back against the grim war, refusing to be broken in the mincing machine of the Western Front. The violence of war is always present, but Cook reveals the gallows humour the soldiers employed to get through it. Over the years, both writers and historians have overlooked this aspect of the men's lives. The fighting at the front was devastating, but behind the battle lines, another layer of life existed, one that included songs, skits, art, and soldier-produced newspapers. With his trademark narrative abilities and an unerring eye for the telling human detail, Cook has created another landmark history of Canadian military life as he reveals the secrets of how soldiers survived the carnage of the Western Front.

Although the United States did not enter the First World War until April 1917, Canada enlisted the moment Great Britain engaged in the conflict in August 1914. The Canadian contribution was great, as more than 600,000 men and women served in the war effort--400,000 of them overseas--out of a population of 8 million. More than 150,000 were wounded and nearly 67,000 gave their lives. The war was a pivotal turning point in the history of the modern world, and its mindless slaughter shattered a generation and destroyed seemingly secure values. The literature that the First World War generated, and continues to generate so many years later, is enormous and addresses a multitude of cultural and social matters in the history of Canada and the war itself. Although many scholars have brilliantly analyzed the literature of the war, little has been done to catalog the writings of ordinary participants: men and women who served in the war and wrote about it but are not included among well-known poets, novelists, and memoirists. Indeed, we don't even know how many titles these people published, nor do we know how many more titles were added later by relatives who considered the recollections or collected letters worthy of publication. Brian Douglas Tennyson's The Canadian Experience of the Great War: A Guide to Memoirs is the first attempt to identify all of the published accounts of First World War experiences by Canadian veterans.

Bruccoli Great War Collection at the University of South Carolina: An Illustrated Catalogue provides a reference tool for the study of one of the great watershed moments in history on both sides of the Atlantic serving historians, researchers, and collectors.

This essay collection traces the sustained work over the past fifty years of the foremost historian of Canadian politics in the era of the two world wars.

Everyone has heard of Winnie-the-Pooh, but not everyone knows about the real Canadian bear who lent him her name. This is a wonderful tale of courage and friendship, for fans of Michael Morpurgo. Come on a heart-warming adventure, inspired by the journey undertaken by an extraordinary bear called Winnie during World War One. From her early days with her mama in the Canadian forest, to her travels with the Veterinary Corps across the country and overseas, Winnie has a remarkable wartime story to tell. And when she meets a little boy called Christopher Robin Milne in London Zoo, he loves her so much that he names his teddy bear Winnie-the-Pooh in her honour. Sophie Blackall's wonderful black and white artwork brings Winnie to life and will capture young readers' imaginations. The author, Lindsay Mattick, is the great grand-daughter of Captain Harry Colebourn - who originally rescued Winnie as a cub - and the story contains entries from his real wartime diaries from WW1. The book also includes a selection of artefacts from the Colebourn Family Archives. The result is a one-of-a-kind exploration into the realities of war, the meaning of courage, and the power of friendship, all told through the historic adventures of one astonishing bear.