National Network for Equitable Library Service

The North American fur trade of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries was a vividly complex and changing social world. Strangers in Blood fills a major gap in fur trade literature by systematically examining the traders as a group -- their backgrounds, social patterns, domestic lives and families, and the problems of their offspring.

Beyond the Amur describes the distinctive frontier society that emerged in the Amur, a river region that shifted between Qing China and Imperial Russia as the two empires competed for resources. Official histories depict the Amur as a distant battleground caught between rival empires. Zatsepine, by contrast, views it as a unified natural economy populated by Chinese, Russian, Indigenous, Japanese, Korean, Manchu, and Mongol people who crossed the border in search of work or trade and who came together to survive a harsh physical environment.

The Royal Canadian Navy crews that sailed the Atlantic during the early Cold War held a contemptuous view of their West Coast brethren, likening the Pacific fleet to a “yacht club” where sailors enjoyed a life of leisurely service on a tranquil sea. As David Zimmerman reveals, nothing could be further from the truth. From the fleet’s postwar downsizing, through to its rapid expansion in the wake of the Korean War as Cold War fears gripped the nation, Maritime Command Pacific fought to hold steady amid drifting Japanese mines, Soviet submarines, and joint US-Canadian training exercises.

For decades the crown jewels of Japan's postwar manufacturing industry, motorcycles remain one of Japan's top exports. Japan's Motorcycle Wars assesses the historical development and societal impact of the motorcycle industry, from the influence of motor sports on vehicle sales in the early 1900s to the postwar developments that led to the massive wave of motorization sweeping the Asia-Pacific region today.

In British Columbia by the Road, Ben Bradley takes readers on an unprecedented journey through the history of roads, highways, and motoring in British Columbia’s Interior, a remote landscape composed of plateaus and interlocking valleys, soaring mountains and treacherous passes. Challenging the idea that the automobile offered travellers the freedom of the road and a view of unadulterated nature, Bradley shows that boosters, businessmen, conservationists, and public servants manipulated what drivers and passengers could and should view from the comfort of their vehicles.

Suburb, Slum, Urban Village examines the relationship between image and reality for one city neighbourhood – Toronto’s Parkdale. Carolyn Whitzman tracks Parkdale’s story across three eras: its early decades as a politically independent suburb of the industrial city; its half-century of ostensible decline toward becoming a slum; and its post-industrial period of transformation into a revitalized urban village. This book also shows how Parkdale’s image influenced planning policy for the neighbourhood. Whitzman demonstrates that image and reality have not always correlated for Parkdale.

During the “Hundred Days” campaign of the First World War, over 30 percent of conscripts who served in the Canadian Corps became casualties. Yet, they were often considered slackers for not having volunteered. Reluctant Warriors is the first examination of the pivotal role played by Canadian conscripts in the final campaign of the Great War on the Western Front. Challenging long-standing myths, this Patrick Dennis examines whether conscripts made any significant difference to the success of the Canadian Corps in 1918.

The Sino-Japanese War (1937–45) had a devastating impact on China’s population. Braving bandits and disease, the China Convoy – a Quaker-sponsored humanitarian unit – provided medical relief in the unoccupied territory of “Free China” and later to both sides in the ensuing civil war. China Gadabouts examines the roles played by Western and Chinese nurses in the Convoy’s humanitarian efforts from 1941 to 1951. In so doing, it re-examines the quandaries of Quakers’ purportedly apolitical global engagement that remain salient for contemporary humanitarians.

Kurt F. Jensen argues that Canada was a more active intelligence partner in the Second World War alliance than has previously been suggested. He describes Canada's contributions to Allied intelligence before the war began, as well as the distinctly Canadian activities that started from that point. He reveals how the government created an intelligence organization during the war to aid Allied resources. This is a convincing portrait of a nation with an active role in Second World War intelligence gathering, one that continues to influence the architecture of its current capabilities.

The legacy of residential schools has haunted Canadians, yet little is known about the day and public schools where most Indigenous children were sent to be educated. In What We Learned, two generations of Tsimshian students – elders born in the 1930s and 1940s and middle-aged adults born in the 1950s and 1960s – add their recollections of attending day schools in northwestern British Columbia to contemporary discussions of Indigenous schooling in Canada.