Canada War Thrift Book

Is Canada really "a peaceable kingdom" with "an unmilitary people"? Desmond Morton says no. This is a country that has been shaped, divided, and transformed by war - there is no greater influence in Canadian history, recent or remote. Through the Cold War, the Gulf War, and after, Canadians had to make difficult decisions about defence and foreign policy, and these events have shaped the country, developing our industries, changing the role of women, realigning our political factions, and changing Canada's status in the world.

Colonel G.W.L. Nicholson's Canadian Expeditionary Force, 1914-1919 was first published by the Department of National Defence in 1962 as the official history of the Canadian Army’s involvement in the First World War. Immediately after the war ended Colonel A. Fortescue Duguid made a first attempt to write an official history of the war, but the ill-fated project produced only the first of an anticipated eight volumes. Decades later, G.W.L. Nicholson - already the author of an official history of the Second World War - was commissioned to write a new official history of the First. Illustrated with numerous photographs and full-colour maps, Nicholson’s text offers an authoritative account of the war effort, while also discussing politics on the home front, including debates around conscription in 1917. With a new critical introduction by Mark Osborne Humphries that traces the development of Nicholson’s text and analyzes its legacy, Canadian Expeditionary Force, 1914-1919 is an essential resource for both professional historians and military history enthusiasts.

The remarkable untold story of France’s courageous, clever vinters who protected and rescued the country’s most treasured commodity from German plunder during World War II. "To be a Frenchman means to fight for your country and its wine." –Claude Terrail, owner, Restaurant La Tour d’Argent In 1940, France fell to the Nazis and almost immediately the German army began a campaign of pillaging one of the assets the French hold most dear: their wine. Like others in the French Resistance, winemakers mobilized to oppose their occupiers, but the tale of their extraordinary efforts has remained largely unknown–until now. This is the thrilling and harrowing story of the French wine producers who undertook ingenious, daring measures to save their cherished crops and bottles as the Germans closed in on them. Wine and War illuminates a compelling, little-known chapter of history, and stands as a tribute to extraordinary individuals who waged a battle that, in a very real way, saved the spirit of France.

Two classic examinations of Canada at war, together in a single volume. Marching to Armageddon: Canadians and the Great War, 1914-1919 and A Nation Forged in Fire: Canadians and the Second World War, 1939-1945 remain classic examinations of Canada's wartime experience. In Canada and the Two World Wars, these two important books are brought together in one volume, featuring a new introduction by the authors, two of the most distinguished historians in Canada. The First World War helped to create a Canadian nation. The war was a catalyst for almost every imaginable change--from skirt lengths and sexual mores to the role of government within Canada and Canada's role within the British Empire. Much more than a military history, Marching to Armageddon evocatively recreates the effects of the war years on ordinary Canadians. All facets of war are brought home through vivid images and incisive text. A Nation Forged in Fire provides an in-depth look at the changes the Second World War brought to Canada. While Canadian soldiers fought and died in foreign lands, women moved into the workforce, industry boomed and the country became a major supplier of food and armaments. For their part, politicians used the country's new clout to demand a voice in international decisions. Old traditions and loyalties were swept aside, and the country would never be the same.

What was it like to be a soldier's wife in Canada during the First World War? More than 80,000 Canadian women were married to men who left home to fight in the war, and its effects on their lives were transformative and often traumatic. Yet the everyday struggles of Canadian war wives, lived far from the battlefields of France, have remained in the shadows of historical memory. Anxious Days and Tearful Nights highlights how Canadian women's experiences of wartime marital separation resembled and differed from those of their European counterparts. Drawing on the letters of married couples separated by wartime service and the military service records of hundreds of Canadian soldiers, Martha Hanna reveals how couples used correspondence to maintain the routine and the affection of domestic life. She explores how women managed households and budgets, how those with children coped with the challenges of what we today would call single parenthood, and when and why some war wives chose to relocate to Britain to be nearer to their husbands. More than anything else, the life of a war wife - especially a war wife separated from her husband for years on end - was marked and marred by unrelieved psychological stress. Through this close personal lens Hanna reveals a broader picture of how war's effects persist across time and space.