By Dennis Molinaro The First World War led to many profound changes in Canadian society, including expanding the security powers of the government and laying the foundations of the modern surveillance state. Through measures such as the War Measures Act and Section 98, certain wartime powers became a permanent means of judging people’s politics in peacetime. Surprisingly, this legacy of… Read more »
By Sarah Glassford “My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!” Nothing beside remains. -from “Ozymandias,” by Percy Bysshe Shelley I cannot think about the politics of commemoration without remembering a famous poem I read in one of my undergraduate English courses. In “Ozymandias,” Romantic poet Percy Shelley reflects upon the transience of… Read more »
By Nic Clarke Nic Clarke is an historian at the Canadian War Museum who has researched Canadian Expeditionary Force policy concerning the physical fitness of recruits, and the implications of rejection for volunteers. The following is an excerpt from his recent book on the topic, Unwanted Warriors: The Rejected Volunteers of the Canadian Expeditionary Force (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2015). We publish… Read more »
ActiveHistory.ca has an announcement! With contributors’ approval, Canada’s History will be selecting posts from the “Canada’s First World War” series on ActiveHistory.ca for inclusion in Canada’s Great War Album. The album is Canada’s History’s online tribute to people and stories from the war, and carries on from their book project that recognized the centennial of the war’s outbreak. The arrangement… Read more »
Sarah Glassford, Christopher Schultz, Nathan Smith, and Jonathan Weier Following a call for submissions, the Canada’s First World War series on ActiveHistory.ca began with a post by Nathan Smith in August 2014 – exactly a century after the outbreak of the Great War. Since that time, the series has posted 40 pieces, including this one. The posts cover topics ranging… Read more »
By Dr. Peter Farrugia and Evan J. Habkirk The American historian, John Bodnar has argued that “Public memory emerges from the intersection of official and vernacular cultural expressions.” Official memory in his conception is propagated by elites who attempt to advance their vision “…by promoting interpretations of past and present reality that reduce the power of competing interests that threaten… Read more »
By Sarah Glassford, Christopher Schultz, Nathan Smith, and Jonathan Weier August 4th is an important day in the centennial of the First World War. It was on this day a century ago that Britain declared war on Germany, committing Canada to the “Great War” as a British Dominion, confirming its alliance with imperial France and Tsarist Russia, and making enemies… Read more »
By Nathan Smith In a recent post here Jonathan Weier compared official plans in the UK and Australia to commemorate the First World War centennial with the Canadian government’s disengagement with the one-hundredth anniversary of the First World War. Given the interest the federal Conservatives have shown in warrior nationalism and war commemoration, this is surprising. From the government’s memorialization… Read more »
http://activehistory.ca/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/Iacobelli-Ottawa-Historical-Association-lecture.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadThe Ottawa Historical Association welcomed historian Teresa Iacobelli on March 5, 2014. ActiveHistory is happy to feature her talk “Death or Deliverance: Canadian Courts Martial in the Great War”. Iacobelli is a SSHRC postdoctoral fellow at Queen’s University. Her talk is based on her book of the same title: Death or Deliverance: Canadian Courts… Read more »
By Jonathan Weier Those who regularly read the British press have been exposed, over the past three months, to a vitriolic war of words over the legacy and meaning of the First World War in Britain. This controversy has become increasingly acrimonious as representatives of the Conservative government and their sympathizers have sought to paint a number of British historians… Read more »
