Canadian Zionists of the 1930s were anxious to involve their government in the Palestine question. The pressure they brought to bear was fuelled by a new urgency when British policy in Palestine denied entry to Jewish refugees from the Nazi terror. Today there is a widely held impression that the Canadian government responded quickly and sympathetically to that pressure. Jews and Arabs alike, each for their own purposes, have created the image of a Canada friendly to Zionism, and of Canadian policy directed by such pro-Zionists as Lester Pearson. But as David Bercuson demonstrates, the truth is far more complex. In fact, Zionist efforts to involve Canada in the Palestine question met with considerable resistance from Ottawa, even when Canada was elected to membership on the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine in 1947. The partition of Palestine was eventually supported by Canada, but begrudgingly. Ottawa viewed partition as the ‘least lousy’ solution to a problem that was acutely sensitive both diplomatically and politically. Hardly the champions of Zionism that it has generally been considered, Canada is revealed in Bercuson’s study as having established a middle east policy, not on moral or ideological grounds, but on the basis of the politicians’ view of its own national interests.
Industry and Humanity was first published in 1918. In it William Lyon Mackenzie King, then a prominent public servant who had forged a respectable reputation among business leaders as an expert in labour affairs, discussed the process of national and industrial reconstruction then about to begin. The book reviewed several momentous crises in North American labour-management relations, revealed the background to various important pieces of Canadian legislation in the field of social welfare, and provided a broad rationale for the establishment of a new programme of democracy in industry. Industry and Humanity is not only a history of King's career as industrial relations expert and consultant for the Canadian government and several giant American corporations. It also contains illustrations and analogies from his urban industrial and educational experiences. He did settlement work, examined working conditions and trade unionism in his graduate studies at university, and pioneered in the federal department of labour in examining at close hand some of the most undesirable effects of industrialization. The portions of the book which were derived from King's experiences in investigation and arbitration work present an invaluable picture of deplorable working conditions and wasting away of human lives. King's analysis of strikes – their causes and social consequences – is the book's central theme and is an accurate and telling assessment of the effects of social strife on the well-being of the community. Moreover, King put flesh on the dry statistics of industrial accidents and illnesses and the testimony of countless inquiries and royal commissions with vivid descriptions of the dehumanizing effects of the modern factory system.
First published in 1995 as Maple Leaf Against the Axis, Our Finest Hour has been completely revised and updated, with new chapters that reflect the latest research about Canada's home front in the war and the formulation and execution of Canadian war strategy at the highest levels. Although Canada was not ready for war in 1939, the people of Canada and their armed forces eventually overcame major challenges—from the building of tanks, planes, ships and trucks and the production of huge amounts of grain, meat and vegetables to the creation of the only full Canadian field army in history and a navy and air force crucial to Allied victory. From Hong Kong to the Rhine River Crossing, Our Finest Hour delves incisively into the pivotal battles of the Second World War and the roles of the Canadian army, navy and air force. Bestselling author David Bercuson probes the war on the ground, on the seas and in the air—from the bomber offensive over Germany to the Typhoon fighter squadrons with the Second Tactical Air Force in Europe. With an unfliching eye, he provides insight into the successes and failures, triumphs and shortcomings of the Canadian military. Our Finest Hour is at once a masterpiece of historical narrative and a celebration of a growing country's contribution during the Second World War.
In The Fighting Canadians, David J. Bercuson tells Canadian history through the eyes, ears and colours of Canadian regiments. From the 17th century, when the “Good Regiment,” the Carignan-salières, fought the Mohawks at Courcelles, to the Newfoundland Regiment’s valiant but brutal stand at Beaumont-Hamel in the Battle of the Somme, from the Winnipeg Grenadiers’ engagement with the Japanese in the Battle of Hong Kong to the Princess Patricias’ trial by fire in the war in Afghanistan, Bercuson tells the story of brave men and women at war. The Fighting Canadians is a celebration of and a testament to the centuries-old tradition that lives on to this day, a venerable system that those now fighting in Afghanistan depend upon as they, too, face a terrible but necessary task.
For all but a few specialists, Canada's military history has been a largely unexplored terrain. Most Canadians have heard of the victory at Vimy Ridge in 1917, they may know about the Royal Canadian Air Force's role in Woarld War II, and they will recollect that Canada has troops scattered around the world on United Nations peacekeeping operations. But until now there was no single volume where a reader could find the essential information on all of Canada's battles and campaigns from the French-Iroquois wars of the 17th century to the UN peacekeeping operation in Croatia and Yugoslavia. Who fought and why? What were the main weapons involved? This book, written by two of Canada's leading historians, provides the answers in succinct, clear form. Here are sketches of the military leaders, the Chiefs of Naval, Air, and General Staff; here are all of the key politicians who have been involved in Canadian military matters, the prime ministers, defence ministers, and veterans affairs ministers; here are the winners of the Victoria Cross (and an explanation of that great mark of courage and the other decorations Canadians have won); and here are the forts, bases, regiments, aircraft, and ships that have made their mark on Canada and Canadians. With over 1,500 entries, the Dictionary of Canadian Military History is the essential, thorough, and easy-to-use guide to Canada's military past and present.
Between 1890 and 1910 scientific and technological innovation transformed the custodial Victorian charity hospital for the sick poor into the primary source of effective acute medical care for all members of society. For the next half century hospitals coped with relentlessly escalating demands for accessibility by both medical indigents and a new clientele of patients able and willing to pay for hospitalization. With limited statutory revenues and unpredictable voluntary support, hospitals taxed paying patients through ever-increasing user fees, offering in return privacy, comfort, service, and medical attendance in private and semi-private wards that were more appealing to middle-class patients than the stark and grudging service of the public wards.
This book studies the changing ways in which American industrial workers mobilised concerted action in their own interests between the abolition of slavery and the end of open immigration from Europe and Asia. Sustained class conflict between 1916 and 1922 reshaped governmental and business policies, but left labour largely unorganised and in retreat. The House of Labor, so arduously erected by working-class activists during the preceeding generation, did not collapse, but ossified, so that when labour activism was reinvigorated after 1933, the movement split in two. These developments are analysed here in ways which stress the links between migration, neighbourhood life, racial subjugation, business reform, the state, and the daily experience of work itself.
Why was Winnipeg the scene of the longest and most complete general strike in North American history? Bercuson answers this question by examining the development of union labour and the impact of depression and war in the two decades preceding the strike.
“Quick-paced, well-researched and well-illustrated, this is the first new history of Canada’s armed forces in decades.” — J. L. Granatstein, author of Canada’s Army Punching Above Our Weight takes readers on a riveting exploration spanning one hundred and fifty years of Canadian forces. This photograph-rich history of 150 years of the Canadian military traces the evolution of the country’s armed forces from a small, underfunded, poorly trained militia to the modern, effective military it is today. From the Red River Resistance and the Boer War to modern peacekeeping and the long war in Afghanistan, David A. Borys details the conflicts and operations that Canadian soldiers have served in. He highlights the key battles, decisive moments, and significant people that came to define Canada’s participation and helped cement its global reputation. Borys also explores the challenges that the Canadian nation and its military have faced over those years, including major cultural and demographic shifts, a continual struggle for resources from generally disinterested governments, battlefield failures, notorious and shocking scandals, along with ever-changing global threats. Punching Above Our Weight brings to light a new perspective on the Canadian military and its place in the world over the past one hundred and fifty years.
Covering training, manning, equipment, and combat efforts, this is first full non-offical history of the Canadian Army's operations from the summer of 1950 to the ceasefire of 1953.
He concludes with a discussion of the recent international success of documentary television as one of Canada's leading cultural exports, examining the effects of globalization and looking forward to the future of this genre. While principally an overview of the last half century and an analysis of current conditions, Documentary Television in Canada also includes detailed analysis of selected programs, such as the For the Record series on schizophrenia, "Warrendale" (by Allan King), "Images of Canada" (by Vincent Tovell), "The Valour and The Horror" episode, "Death by Moonlight" and "Shooting Indians" (by Ali Kazimi) among others.
After the terrorist attacks of 9/11, which targeted the heart of financial and military power in the United States, Canada once again proved its credentials as a key American ally. With the imminent end of its combat role in Afghanistan, however, it is time to take stock of how Canada has adapted to the exigencies of the post-9/11 world and to consider the future directions for its foreign, defence, and security policies. This timely exploration and re-assessment of Canada's approach to strategic affairs offers a diverse set of nuanced, sometimes controversial, and always insightful perspectives on the most pressing security challenges that Canada currently faces. Bringing together noted experts on these issues – including a Canadian Senator, a past Minister of National Defence, former high-level military officers, and top scholars - this collection provides powerful ideas and guidance for the difficult task of formulating an overarching national security strategy.
In January 1992 the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) broadcast The Valour and the Horror, a three-part television series on Canada's role in World War II. It sparked a major controversy among viewers, war veterans, and historians. Brian and Terence McKenna, the authors-producers of the series, were accused of distorting historical facts, maligning individuals such as commanders Arthur Harris and Guy Simonds, presenting a biased account of events, and overstepping the line between journalism and drama. The Valour and the Horror Revisited brings together source documents, original essays, and commentaries to provide an analysis of the specific accusations and of larger questions concerning responsible journalism. Included in the collection are reports by David Bercuson and S.F. Wise, who were asked by the CBC ombudsman to assess the series; the CBC ombudsman's report; the McKennas' response to the ombudsman's report; the ombudsman's commentary on the McKennas' response; and three new essays by historians John Ferris, William McAndrew, and Scot Robertson on the incidents covered in the series - Canadian involvement in the battles in Hong Kong and Normandy, and the bombing of Germany. The Valour and the Horror Revisited addresses such important issues as the dangers of "docudrama," the calibre of the Canadian media, the meaning of the Canadian experience in the war, and the nature of history.
The Maritime region is thus torn between its memory of an earlier, more prosperous and traditional social order and its present experience as a less fortunate modern industrial society. These tensions are embedded in the Maritime character and have affected not only the lives of its people but the imaginations and texts of its writers."--BOOK JACKET.
Historian Ramsay Cook called George Grant one of Canada's two most important political thinkers in the twentieth century. In these lively conversations, recorded not long before Grant's death, David Cayley explores with Grant the deep roots of his faith, his evolution as a thinker, and his views on the future of Canada.
Selected by Choice as an Outstanding Academic Title for 2003 The word “violence” conjures up images of terrorism, bombings, and lynchings. Beaten Down is concerned with more prosaic acts of physical force—a husband slapping his wife, a parent taking a birch branch to a child, a pair of drunken friends squaring off to establish who was the “better man.” David Peterson del Mar accounts for the social relations of power that lie behind this intimate form of violence, this “white noise” that has always been with us, humming quietly between more explosive acts of violence. Broad in its chronological and cultural sweep, Beaten Down examines interpersonal violence in Washington, Oregon, and British Columbia beginning with Native American cultures before colonization and continuing into the mid-twentieth century. It contrasts the disparate ways of practicing and punishing interpersonal violence on each side of the U.S.-Canadian border. Del Mar concludes that we cannot comprehend the causes and moral consequences of a violent act without considering larger social relations of power, whether between colonizers and original inhabitants, between spouses, between parents and children, or between and among different ethnic groups. The author has drawn on a vast array of vivid sources, including newspaper accounts, autobiographies, novels, oral histories, historical and ethnographic publications, and hundreds of detailed court cases to account for not only the relative frequency of different forms of violence, but also the shifting definitions and perceptions of what constitutes violence. This is a thoughtful and probing account of how and why people have hit each other and the manner in which opinion makers and ordinary citizens have censured, defended, or celebrated such acts. Del Mar’s conclusions have important implications for an understanding of violence and perceptions of violence in contemporary society.
Thank you for visiting our website. Would you like to provide feedback on how we could improve your experience?
This site does not use any third party cookies with one exception — it uses cookies from Google to deliver its services and to analyze traffic.Learn More.