National Network for Equitable Library Service

Hiroshima Immigrants in Canada, 1891-1941 is a fascinating investigation of Japanese migration to Canada prior to the Second World War. It makes Japanese-language scholarship on the subject available for the first time, and also draws on interviews, diaries, community histories, biographies, and the author's own family history. Starting with the history of the feudal fiefs of Aki and Bingo, which were merged into Hiroshima prefecture, Ayukawa describes the political, economic, and social circumstances that precipitated emigration between 1891 and 1941.

Over the span of seven years, hundreds of people displaced by mass violence told their stories to the Montreal Life Stories project. From the outset, the project’s organizers sought to develop an alternative model to traditional oral history practice, one where community members “shared authority” as equal partners. Together, they challenged long-held beliefs about how oral stories should be collected and shared. As a sustained reflection on this large-scale experiment in collaborative research, Oral History at the Crossroads has methodological and ethical implications for scholars.

Unwanted Warriors uncovers the history of Canada’s first casualties of the Great War – men who tried to enlist but were deemed “unfit for service.” What impact did military exclusion have on these men? Nic Clarke looks for answers in the service files of 3,400 rejected volunteers and explores the mechanics of the medical examination, the physical and psychological qualities that the authorities believed made a fighting man, and how evaluations changed as the war dragged on.

Zombie Army tells the story of Canada’s Second World War military conscripts – reluctant soldiers pejoratively referred to as “zombies” for their perceived similarity to the mindless movie monsters of the 1930s. In the first full-length book on the subject in almost forty years, Byers combines underused and newly discovered records to argue that although conscripts were only liable for home defence, they soon became a steady source of recruits from which the army found volunteers to serve overseas.

Built within an exceptional watershed, Montreal is intertwined with the waterways that ring its island and flow beneath it in underground networks. Montreal, City of Water focuses on water not only as a physical element – both shaping and shaped by urban development – but also as a sociocultural component of the life of the city. This unique study considers how water has produced and transformed urban space over two centuries.

How has race shaped Canada’s international encounters and its role in the world? In Dominion of Race, leading scholars demonstrate the necessity of placing race at the centre of the narratives of Canadian international history. Destabilizing conventional understandings of Canada in the world, they expose how race-thinking has informed priorities and policies, positioned Canada in the international community, and contributed to a global order rooted in racial beliefs.

Many Canadians believe their nation fell on the right side of history in harbouring escaped slaves from the United States. In fact, in the wake of the American Revolution, many Loyalist families brought slaves with them when they settled in the Maritime colonies of British North America. Once there, slaves used their traditions of survival, resistance, and kinship networks to negotiate their new reality.

Chinese Comfort Women is the first English-language book featuring accounts of the “comfort station” experiences of women from Mainland China, forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese military during the Asia-Pacific War. Through personal narratives from twelve survivors, this book reveals the unfathomable atrocities committed against women during the war and correlates the proliferation of “comfort stations” with the progression of Japan’s military offensive.

As environmental deterioration became a major social and political issue near the end of the twentieth century, activists in Nova Scotia stood together to defend the places they called home. Political radicals and conservatives alike worked to achieve legislative and social success, even as they disagreed over fundamental principles. In Defence of Home Places examines the diversity of this movement, its early accomplishments, and the disagreements that caused its eventual weakening and division.

The Canadian Rangers stand sentinel in the farthest reaches of our country. For more than six decades, this dedicated group of citizen-soldiers has quietly served as Canada's eyes, ears, and voice in isolated coastal and northern communities. Drawing on official records, interviews, and participation in Ranger exercises, Lackenbauer argues that the organization offers an inexpensive way for Canada to "show the flag" from coast to coast to coast.