Canada 1919

With compelling insight, Canada 1919 exposes the ways in which the First World War shaped and changed Canada – and the ways it did not.

With compelling insight, Canada 1919 exposes the ways in which the First World War shaped and changed Canada – and the ways it did not.

Tim Cook is the First World War historian at the Canadian War Museum, a Member of the Order of Canada, and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. His eleven books include prize-winning studies of the Great War and the Second World War and an analysis of the memory of the 1917 victory at Vimy Ridge. J.L. Granatstein is Distinguished Research Professor of History Emeritus at York University, and a former director and CEO of the Canadian War Museum. He has served on various government commissions, and his many publications include prize-winning studies of Canadian wartime politics, diplomacy, and the nation’s military history. He is an Officer of the Order of Canada, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, and has seven honorary degrees.

Contributors: Kristine Alexander, David Jay Bercuson, Kandace Bogaert, Alan Bowker, Laura Brandon, Douglas E. Delaney, Serge Marc Durflinger, Norman Hillmer, Mark Osborne Humphries, Jeff Keshen, Brian R. MacDowall, Mélanie Morin-Pelletier, Dean F. Oliver, Lyndsay Rosenthal, Roger Sarty, William Stewart, Jonathan F. Vance

Brittany C. Dunn, Wilfred Laurier University:

"I recommend this edited collection to anyone who wants to understand the immediate and long-lasting legacies—both positive and negative—of the First World War on Canada."

Jack Cunningham, Trinity College, University of Toronto:
This collection of essays by established historians and emerging scholars, based on a 2019 conference at the Canadian War Museum, provides a richly detailed, if not quite comprehensive, portrait of Canada on the precipice of modernity.

Andrew Iarocci, Western University:

"Cook and Granatstein’s volume offers a rich selection of interpretations from scholars of the World War I period…"

Jim Blanchard, Librarian Emeritus, University of Manitoba:

Altogether, this is a fascinating collection of papers and recommended reading for anyone interested in the history of Canada’s role in the Great War.

S. Perreault:

All the articles are short and highly readable and provide multiple notes for further research that will prove useful to beginning researchers.

Marc Sanko, Clarion University of Pennsylvania:

This work is fantastic, and the breadth of topics covered truly gives the reader a rich flavor of the issues facing not just Canada, but global democracies at the end of the First World War.

Geoffrey Hayes, Department of History, University of Waterloo:

A rich, timely, and varied reflection on the legacy of the Great War.

Michael S. Neiberg, author of Path to War: How the First World War Created Modern America:

Tim Cook and Jack Granatstein are legends in the field, and this collection only solidifies their reputations. Canada 1919 brings together one of the most impressive collections of minds I have seen in a single volume to explain how the Canadian experience of war was much, much more than Vimy Ridge.

Raymond B. Blake, Craig Dobbin Professor of Canadian Studies, University College Dublin and co-author of Where Once They Stood: Newfoundland's Rocky Road Towards Confederation:

Brilliant and Engaging! New and established scholars explore the lives of Canadians following the Great War with new questions, new approaches, and new insights. Cook and Granatstein demonstrate vividly why this country’s military past is so important to understanding contemporary Canada.

P.E. Bryden, professor of History, University of Victoria:

Canada 1919 illuminates the space between war and peace and reminds us of just how satisfying a deep dive into a single year can be. Meticulously researched and provocatively argued, this book interweaves layers of generals, soldiers, and politicians, with examinations of orphans, flu sufferers, workers, strikers, and more. The result is a rich new examination of the moment one world ended and another began.

John English, Bill Graham Centre for Contemporary International History:

A new world began in 1919. As great empires crumbled and traditions did not hold, Canadians saw their country in new and different ways. Canada 1919 possesses an exceptionally wide vision, one that reveals how a tumultuous year dramatically changed how Canadians came to think differently about their politics, art, women, the war, and what Canada could be.