J. L. Granatstein

In the 1960s, A.B. Hodgetts in his groundbreaking What Culture? What Heritage? bemoaned the loss of our history. Some 30 years later, in this brilliant and impassioned new evaluation, J.L. Granatstein points to an even more appalling situation in both the educational system and in our daily lives. As he argues so articulately, Canada is one of the few nations in the Western world not to teach its history to its young people and to its new citizens. The result: a nation that does not understand and respect its own past. How bad is the situation? In a 1997 survey at York University's Glendon College, 66% of first-year students could not name a Canadian author, most could not name the first English- and French-speaking Prime Ministers, over 50% could not give the date of Confederation. In a Dominion Institute Poll of the same year, 77% were unaware that Remembrance Day commemorated the end of the First World War and only 10% could identify the Quiet Revolution. What is worse, when history is taught in our schools, it is too often processed through the filter of political correctness. Who is responsible for this unthinking conspiracy to eliminate our history? Granatstein lays the blame with a number of culprits: schools that are too busy teaching trendy subjects, and dealing with the needs of recent immigrants; universities where history has been reduced to a series of arcane subjects; ministries of education that have dropped Canadian history as a required course and approved dumbed-down textbooks; the federal government with its misguided multicultural policies; even the media, which should be above political pressures, too often uses history to search for villainy. Granatstein shows that other countries, much older than Canada, have understood how to treat history as a necessary and important condition of existence. He offers wise and reasoned solutions to a problem that undermines our sense of ourselves at a time when national understanding is essential. Parents who want their children well-educated, educators who face difficult decisions, policy makers who balance many needs and all those who care about their country must read this book.

Who Killed Canadian History?

Tim Cook

With compelling insight, Canada 1919 examines the concerns of Canadians in the year following the Great War: the treatment of veterans, including nurses and Indigenous soldiers; the rising farm lobby; the role of labour; the place of children; the influenza pandemic; the country's international standing; and commemoration of the fallen. Even as the military stumbled through massive demobilization and the government struggled to hang on to power, a new Canadian nationalism was forged. This fresh perspective on the concerns of the time exposes the ways in which war shaped Canada - and the ways it did not.

A Nation Shaped by War

Canada 1919

David Stafford

Espionage and Canada from Gouzenko to Glasnost

Spy Wars

Norman A. Robertson and Canadian Statecraft, 1929-68

A Man of Influence

"Canada's Army traces the full three-hundred year history of the Canadian military from its origins in New France to the Conquest, the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812; from South Africa and the two World Wars to the Korean War and contemporary peacekeeping efforts, and the War in Afghanistan. Granatstein points to the inevitable continuation of armed conflict around the world and makes a compelling case for Canada to maintain properly equipped and professional armed forces."--pub. desc.

Waging War and Keeping the Peace

Canada's Army

The battle of Vimy Ridge in April 1917 is a much celebrated moment in both Canadian and European military history. Vimy was a costly success. While it did improve military and public morale, the reality is that it was more of a symbolic victory than a strategic one (the Germans retreated a few miles and many lives had been lost). Surprisingly, few Canadians are familiar with the real story of Canadian military success and sacrifice: the Hundred Days that led to the end of the war. Beginning on August 8, 1918, the Canadian Corps launched a series of attacks that took Amiens, crossed the Canal du Nord, smashed the Hindenburg Line, took Cambrai and Valenciennes, and defeated a quarter of the German Army in the field. On the morning of August 8, following the Canadian-led attack, German commander and joint head of the German army Erich Ludendorff called it "the Black Day of the German Army." In the hundred days that preceded the Armistice on November 11, 1918, the Canadian Corps made its greatest contribution to the Allied victory in World War 1 and, without question, the greatest contribution any Canadian force has ever made in battle. The 100,000 soldiers of the four Canadian divisions fought a mobile war that was revolutionary in its effectiveness and, as J. L. Granatstein argues, would influence the course of subsequent fighting, particularly in World War 2. With 45,000 casualties in three months (almost a quarter of Canadian casualties during the whole four years of the war), however, the costs were heavy. These Canadian-led assaults changed Allied fighting from static defensive positions to a war of mobility, technology, and smart coordination. How did Canadians come to lead these mobile, well-coordinated, and hard-hitting attacks? The preparations were intense, according to Granatstein, ranging from individual training to massive corps-wide exercises; careful analysis of "lessons learned" studies; expansion of the role of signallers, gunners and engineers; and perfection of techniques like the "creeping barrage." The "fire and movement" philosophy emphasized by Sir Arthur Currie, Commander of the Canadian Corps, increased the use of tanks, machine guns, Stokes mortars, and phosphorus bombs, among other military hardware. Mobility was the key; Canadians used their two Motor Machine Brigades - with guns and mortars mounted on armoured cars and trucks - with great effect. Granatstein is an award-winning historian who has received six honorary degrees for his work on conflict and Canadian history. He is a gifted writer with a profound understanding of the historical and political context of World War I, as well as the many factors that played into the complex events in the final days of the war. These factors include complex politics, the logistics of large-scale battles, the personalities organizing the battles, and even the specific weather and geography that influenced battle outcomes. Perhaps most important is Granatstein's excellent selection of soldiers' own description of their experience on the ground, in his use of the Canadian Letters and Images Project. In addition to these perspectives, events are recounted from a variety of angles, including that of Canada's most famous General, Sir Arthur Currie. This new account of Canada's one hundred days will displace Vimy as the moment to remember about how the Great War was won - with difficulty, determination, and sacrifice.

Canada's One Hundred Days, 1918

The Greatest Victory

Norman Hillmer

This bestselling rating of our 20 prime ministers, from Mackenzie King to Kim Campbell, offers provocative new insights into the nature of political leadership in Canada

Ranking Canada's Leaders

Prime Ministers

Covering the major conflicts in depth, and exploring battles, tactics, and weapons, J.L. Granatstein offers a rich analysis of the political context for the battles and events that shaped our understanding of the nation's army.

Have we lost our past, and, in turn, ourselves? Who is slamming shut our history books -- and why? In an indictment that points damning fingers at our education system, the media and our government's preoccupation with multiculturalism to the exclusion of English Canadian culture, historian J.L. Granatstein offers astonishing evidence of our lack of historical knowledge. He shows not only how "dumbing down" in our education system is contributing to the death of Canadian history, but how a multi-disciplinary social studies approach puts more nails in the coffin. He explains how some teachers think studying the Second World War glorifies violence and may worsen French-English conflicts if conscription is mentioned, And he tells how the pride Canadians should feel over their past has been brushed aside by efforts to create a history that suits the misguided ideas of successive ministers of Canadian heritage and multiculturalism. Finally, he shows that there is hope, and there are steps we must take if we are to renew our past -- and ensure our future. With his intelligent and outspoken "blow the dust off the history books" approach to his subject, J.L. Granatstein has produced a brilliantly argued book that addresses a subject too important to ignore. Published to coincide with the anniversary of the battle of Vimy Ridge (April 9, 1917), and appearing at a time when our education system is coming under ever sharper attack Who Killed Canadian History? is a timely and provocative release. A recent test on Canada given to 100 first-year students at an Ontario university revealed the following statistics: -- 61% did not know that Sir John A. Macdonald was our first English-speaking prime minister -- 55% did not know that Canada was founded in 1867 -- 95% did not know that 1837 was the date of the Rebellions of Upper and Lower Canada -- 92% did not know the year of the first Quebec referendum

Desmond Morton

While Canadian soldiers fought and died in World War II, Canada itself was changing. Ottawa was forced to turn to the United States for economic and strategic aid; women entered the work force; industry boomed; and old traditions and loyalties were swept away.

Canadians and the Second World War, 1939-1945

A Nation Forged in Fire

"Jack Granatstein’s Who Killed the Canadian Military? is more than a history of the decline and rustout of a military that as late as 1966 boasted 3,826 aircraft (including cutting-edge Sea King helicopters) as opposed to today’s 328 aircraft-including those same Sea Kings and CF-18 fighters whose avionics are a generation out of date; the same can be said of the army and navy. Granatstein’s book is a convincing analysis of Canada’s embrace of a delusional foreign policy that equates knee jerk anti-Americanism with sovereignty and forgets that in a Hobbesian world of international relations, “power still comes primarily from the barrel of a gun” and not from Steven Lewis’s speeches about Canadian goodwill, tolerance or humanitarianism."--from amazon.com product desc.

Who Killed the Canadian Military?

Peter Neary

Rehabilitating Canada's soldiers to civilian life following World War II was a massive undertaking. The Veterans Charter, the program devised by the federal government to do this, promised to provide "opportunity with security" and was one of the building blocks of the Canadian welfare state. This collection of essays by some of Canada's leading historians explores the Charter's origins, history, and benefits as well as highlights its role in the development of the Canadian welfare state and postwar society.

The Veterans Charter and Post-World War II Canada

One of The Hill Times' Best Books of 2016 Three-quarters of a century after the Second World War, almost all the participants are gone. This book contains interviews with and about the Canadian generals who led the troops during that war. Edited and introduced by one of the foremost military historians of our time, this carefully curated collection brings to life the generals and their wartime experiences. The content is revealing and conversations frank. Peers and subordinates alike scrutinize key commanders of the war, sometimes offering praise but often passing harsh judgment. We learn of their failings and successes -- and of the heavy weight of command borne by all.

Voices of Canada's Second World War Generals and Those Who Knew Them

The Weight of Command

The only history of conscription in Canada, by one of Canada's finest historians, now re-issued with a new introduction ... Compulsory military service has always been a controversial issue, and nowhere more so than in Canada. Award-winning historian J.L Granatstein considers the thorny questions it raises: "Is it worthwhile to impose conscription if by so doing you threaten to destroy the nation and the national unity that the men at the front are presumably fighting to preserve?" This new edition of Granatstein's classic account begins with a reflection about why he has changed his mind since first writing this book over thirty years ago. It remains the only history of conscription in Canada. When Britain declared war on Germany in 1914, Canada sent a volunteer force. As the war progressed, however, reinforcements were needed. Quebec resisted, for demographic reasons, but there were larger questions as well: "To speak of defending French civilization in Europe while harrying it in America seems to us an absurd inconsistency," wrote Henri Bourassa in August 1916. Bitterness and division were the product of poor government handling. Granatstein also explores how conscription did not go away following World War 1, but became an issue again in World War 2, the Korean War, and the Cold War. Conscription has plagued Canadians for a century. Granatstein compellingly argues that no single issue has done more to muddy the political waters or to destroy the unity of the nation.

J. L. Granatstein

Books

Your next favorite book is out there