Compared to the idea that Canada was a nation forged in victory on Vimy Ridge, the reality of dissent and repression at home strikes a sour note. Through censorship, conscription, and internment, the government of Canada worked more ruthlessly than either Great Britain or the United States to suppress opposition to the war effort during the First World War. Polarity, Patriotism, and Dissent in Great War Canada, 1914–1919 examines the basis for those repressive policies. Brock Millman, an expert on wartime dissent in both the United Kingdom and Canada, argues that Canadian policy was driven first and foremost by a fear that opposition to the war amongst French Canadians and immigrant communities would provoke social tensions – and possibly even a vigilante backlash from the war’s most fervent supporters in British Canada. Highlighting the class and ethnic divisions which characterized public support for the war, Polarity, Patriotism, and Dissent in Great War Canada, 1914–1919 offers a broad and much-needed reexamination of Canadian government policy on the home front.

"Compared to the idea that Canada was a nation forged in victory on Vimy Ridge, the reality of dissent and repression at home strikes a sour note. Through censorship, conscription, and internment, the government of Canada worked more ruthlessly than either Great Britain or the United States to suppress opposition to the war effort during the First World War. Polarity, Patriotism, and Dissent in Great War Canada, 1914-1919 examines the basis for those repressive policies. Brock Millman, an expert on wartime dissent in both the United Kingdom and Canada, argues that Canadian policy was driven first and foremost by a fear that opposition to the war amongst French Canadians and immigrant communities would provoke social tensions--and possibly even a vigilante backlash from the war's most fervent supporters in British Canada. Highlighting the class and ethnic divisions which characterized public support for the war, Polarity, Patriotism, and Dissent in Great War Canada, 1914-1919 offers a broad and much-needed reexamination of Canadian government policy on the home front."--

During the First World War, Henri Bourassa – fierce Canadian nationalist, politician, and journalist from Quebec – took centre stage in the national debates on Canada’s participation in the war, its imperial ties to Britain, and Canada’s place in the world. In Duty to Dissent, Geoff Keelan draws upon Bourassa’s voluminous editorials in Le Devoir, the newspaper he founded in 1910, to trace Bourassa’s evolving perspective on the war’s meaning and consequences. What emerges is not a simplistic sketch of a local journalist engaged in national debates, as most English Canadians know him, but a fully rendered portrait of a Canadian looking out at the world. By situating Bourassa within a larger panorama that connects him to prominent war resisters from around the globe, Keelan offers fresh insight into one of Canada’s most influential historical figures, reshaping our understanding of why Quebec’s position on the Great War differed so radically from the rest of Canada.

Canada’s largest and most famous example of class conflict, the Winnipeg General Strike, redefined local, national, and international conversations around class, politics, region, ethnicity, and gender. The Strike’s centenary occasioned a re-examination of this critical moment in working-class history, when 300 social justice activists, organizers, scholars, trade unionists, artists, and labour rights advocates gathered in Winnipeg in 2019. Probing the meaning of the General Strike in new and innovative ways, For a Better World includes a selection of contributions from the conference as well as others’ explorations of the character of class confrontation in the aftermath of the First World War. Editors Naylor, Hinther, and Mochoruk depict key events of 1919, detailing the dynamic and complex historiography of the Strike and the larger Workers’ Revolt that reverberated around the world and shaped the century following the war. The chapters delve into intersections of race, class, and gender. Settler colonialism’s impact on the conflict is also examined. Placing the struggle in Winnipeg within a broader national and international context, several contributors explore parallel strikes in Edmonton, Crowsnest Pass, Montreal, Kansas City, and Seattle. For a Better World interrogates types of commemoration and remembrance, current legacies of the Strike, and its ongoing influence. Together, the essays in this collection demonstrate that the Winnipeg General Strike continues to mobilize—revealing our radical past and helping us to think imaginatively about collective action in the future.