POLIS 210: Canada and the World

Strangers in Arms is a groundbreaking study of the behaviour, morale, and motivations of Canadian infantrymen on the front lines of the Second World War. Questioning entrenched views, Robert Engen explores a trove of contemporaneous documents to create a remarkable new portrait of Canadians at war. He finds staggering casualty rates and personnel turmoil that left Canadian infantrymen often working with and fighting beside men they hardly knew.

Wartime secrets and the men charged with manipulating Canadian public opinion are unveiled for the first time in this riveting account of media censorship by the government during World War II. Now, with freshly unsealed World War II press-censor files, many of the undocumented events that occurred in wartime Canada are finally revealed. The Fog of War investigates the realities of media censorship through the experiences of those deputized to act on the public's behalf.

Larry D. Rose, a long-time journalist and a military specialist, examines the military's own failures, the hidden agenda of Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King, and the divisions within Canada leading up to Canada's entry into World War II. He suggests that the lack of preparedness was directly responsible for two of Canada's costliest military defeats: the battle of Hong Kong and Dieppe.

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 J. Bercuson probes the war on the ground, on the seas and in the air. With an unflinching eye, he provides insight into the successes and failures, the 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 his 2003 book Fields of Fire, Terry Copp offered a stunning reversal of accepted military history, challenging the conventional view that the Canadian contribution to the Battle of Normandy was a failure. Cinderella Army continues the story of the operations carried out by the First Canadian Army in World War II. As passionately written and compellingly argued as its precursor, Cinderella Army is both an important bookend to Copp's earlier work, and stands on its own as a significant contribution to Canadian military history.

The first-ever synthesis of both the patriotic and the problematic in wartime Canada, Saints, Sinners, and Soldiers shows how moral and social changes, and the fears they generated, precipitated numerous, and often contradictory, legacies in law and society. From labour conflicts, to the black market, to prostitution, and beyond, Keshen acknowledges the underbelly of Canada's Second World War, and demonstrates that the "Good War" was a complex tapestry of social forces - not all of which were above reproach.