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"Every Commonwealth citizen knows of the WWI poem, In Flanders Fields. But what do we really know about its author, Canadian soldier/physician/poet, John McCrae? How much do we know of the actual events leading to the writing of one of the most famous war poems ever written? Why do we wear a red poppy in November? Bonfire--the chestnut gentleman is a moving, intimate, and unforgettable look at the writer of the indelible poem, and his world within the war that shaped our nation."--Back of dust jacket.
Shortlisted, 2018 Forest of Reading Golden Oak Award Most Canadians are familiar with John McCrae through his iconic poem “In Flanders Fields,” which was penned on the battlefields of the First World War and remains a symbol of remembrance to this day. Although he will always be remembered as a war poet, the Guelph, Ontario, native was a physician, a university professor, and a veteran of the Second Boer War before he ever laid eyes on the carnage at Flanders Fields. Citing rarely seen diary entries and letters, as well as never-before-published photos of McCrae’s early life, military historian and McCrae enthusiast Susan Raby-Dunne tells the complete story of John McCrae—a man whose final chapter of life made him immortal, but who accomplished so much and helped so many in the decades before.
This fully-illustrated, easily-accessible, account of the battle of Passchendaele presents the background and details of Canada's coming of age in The Great War. During WWI, the battle for the tiny Belgium town Passchendaele was one of the most significant tests of Canadian courage and expertise. British Commander-in-Chief General Douglas Haig had devised one of the most controversial stratagems of the entire war: Allied forces would attack headlong into the heavily fortified German entrenchments, capture the town of Passchendaele and its highlands, and drive toward the coast to destroy German submarine bases. General Arthur Currie's Canadian Corps was called to the front for this attack. Af...
How to use design as a tool to create not only things but ideas, to speculate about possible futures. Today designers often focus on making technology easy to use, sexy, and consumable. In Speculative Everything, Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby propose a kind of design that is used as a tool to create not only things but ideas. For them, design is a means of speculating about how things could be—to imagine possible futures. This is not the usual sort of predicting or forecasting, spotting trends and extrapolating; these kinds of predictions have been proven wrong, again and again. Instead, Dunne and Raby pose “what if” questions that are intended to open debate and discussion about the ki...
The never-before-published memoir of Major-General Sir Edward Morrison, a true Canadian hero of the First World War. The First World War marked a turning point in Canadian history and in Canada’s self-identification as a nation. Yet in memorializing the iconic events and battles of the War, certain key individuals who participated have been lost in our collective memory. One of those individuals is Major-General Sir Edward Morrison. Morrison was instrumental in the Canadian Army’s efforts and achievements throughout the War, but especially from 1916 until 1918, when he commanded all Canadian artillery, including at the battles of Vimy Ridge and Passchendaele. An accomplished journalist w...
Evil had to be defeated and he had a responsibility to help. Now it was too late to do anything but spend the lives of millions of young men to defeat this new Dark Age. The mountains were witness to Sidney's determination to stand tall against the darkness. "Those mountains have always been there. They can be my memorial if I don't come back." This family story spans five generations through the Indian Wars of the Dakotas and Montana, both world wars and Vietnam. It speaks to the heartbreak war often brings when young men roll the dice to answer the call of duty. The story weaves tales of separation, unrequited love, intense romance and devotion to promises and honour. At it's heart, this is an anti war story that illustrates how family can be devastated by conflict while also speaking to the healing of spirit that passes from one generation to the next.
"Originally published in 2002, Canada's Army quickly became the definitive history of the Canadian military. In the twenty intervening years, we have seen major changes to how Canadians think about their military, and in the ways Canadians fight, train, and serve their nation in peace and in war. Written by J.L. Granatstein, one of the country's leading political and military historians, Canada's Army traces the full three-hundred-year history of the Canadian military. This thoroughly revised third edition brings Granatstein's work up to date with fresh material and new scholarship on the evolving role of the military in Canadian society, along with updated sources, maps, and illustrations. ...
The first book to be published on the work of their partnership (in 2001), Design Noir is the essential primary source for understanding the theoretical and conceptual underpinnings for Dunne & Raby's work. Consisting of three elements - a 'manifesto' on the possibilities of designing with and for the 'secret life' of electronic objects; notes for an embryonic network of critical designers and, most famously, the presentation of the Placebo Project – a prototype for a critical design poetics enacted around electronic furniture-objects – Design Noir offers an in-depth exploration of one of the most seminal design projects of the last two decades, one that arguably initiated speculating th...
The diary of David Watson, who rose through the officer ranks to command one of the four divisions in the Great War, is an exceptional document that details with candid insight the responsibilities of senior command and shows the talent required to rise through the CEF to divisional command. The only published diary of a Canadian who held this rank in the last two (critical) years of the war, it focuses on the evolution of military leadership and associated challenges that Watson (and his peers) faced during the Great War. It recounts how he navigated not only the military battlefield in France and Belgium but also the political battlefield of the Canadian Expeditionary Force and larger British Expeditionary Force. The divisional commanders played a central role in the Corps’ transformation into a first-rate professional army, a transformation that coincided with Watson’s tenure at the 4th Division. Major-General David Watson’s personal accounts offer valuable insights into the innermost workings of the Canadian Corps at various stages during the war and in particular its emergence as an elite fighting force and the pride of a nation
"Carmichael captures the anguish and the wonder of war in flashes of colour, humour, and gems of human detail mined from letters, diaries, interviews, [and] her own family history." —Halifax Chronicle Herald A rich and varied tapestry of the First World War, highlighting the personal stories of over 150 men and women from across North America who served overseas. After receiving a bundle of worn letters written by her late grandfather George “Black Jack” Vowel during the First World War, journalist Jacqueline Carmichael became fascinated with the daily realities and personal stories of those who had lived through that pivotal and harrowing period in history. Reaching beyond the battlef...