National Network for Equitable Library Service

During the Second World War, Canadian factories produced mountains of munitions and supplies, including some 800 ships, 16,000 aircraft, 800,000 vehicles, and over 4.6 billion rounds of ammunition and artillery shells. However, the end of hostilities in 1945 turned the leftover assets into peacetime liabilities. Alex Souchen provides a definitive account of the disposal crisis triggered by Allied victory and shows how Canadians responded to the unprecedented divestment of public property by reusing and recycling military surpluses to improve their postwar lives. War Junkrecounts the complex political, economic, social, and environmental legacies of munitions disposal in Canada by revealing how the tools of war became integral to the making of postwar Canada.