In print for the first time since 1971, Manual for Draft-Age Immigrants to Canada has once again become relevant in a time of major political upheaval in the United States of America. First published in 1968 by House of Anansi Press, the Manual for Draft-Age Immigrants to Canada was a handbook for Americans who refused to serve as draftees in the Vietnam War and were considering immigrating to Canada. Conceived as a practical guide with information on the process, the Manual also features information on aspects of Canadian society, touching on topics like history, politics, culture, geography and climate, jobs, housing, and universities. The Manual went through several editions from 1968–71. Today, as Americans are taking up the discussion of immigration to Canada once again, it is an invaluable record of a moment in our recent history.

In 1967, then-unknown writers David Godfrey and Dennis Lee founded a small press they grandly named “The House of Anansi,” after an African trickster spider-god. Their goal was to publish groundbreaking new Canadian work in three core genres: literary fiction, poetry, and topical nonfiction. Forty years later, Anansi is not only going strong but enjoying a fascinating creative renaissance, bolstered by both its important backlist and its renewed commitment to seeking out the best new writers and ideas to publish alongside its established ones. Assembled by award-winning writer Lynn Coady, The Anansi Reader features excerpts from ten of the best books from each decade of the existence of the press, for a total of 40 entries. Samples from Lynn Crosbie's Queen Rat, Northrop Frye's The Educated Imagination, and Kevin Connelly's Drift are among the treasures included. In a thoughtful coda, Coady shows readers the future with selections from seven exciting works-in-progress coming from Anansi in the next two years.

The United States is accustomed to accepting waves of migrants who are fleeing oppressive conditions and political persecution in their home countries. But in the 1960s and 1970s, the flow of migration reversed as over fifty thousand Americans fled across the border to Canada to resist military service during the Vietnam War or to escape their homeland’s hawkish society. Unguarded Border tells their stories and, in the process, describes a migrant experience that does not fit the usual paradigms. Rather than treating these American refugees as unwelcome foreigners, Canada embraced them, refusing to extradite draft resisters or military deserters and not even requiring passports for the border crossing. And instead of forming close-knit migrant communities, most of these émigrés sought to integrate themselves within Canadian society. Historian Donald W. Maxwell explores how these Americans in exile forged cosmopolitan identities, coming to regard themselves as global citizens, a status complicated by the Canadian government’s attempts to claim them and the U.S. government’s eventual efforts to reclaim them. Unguarded Border offers a new perspective on a movement that permanently changed perceptions of compulsory military service, migration, and national identity.