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Saints, Sinners, and Soldiers

Canada's Second World War

Jeffrey A Keshen author

Format:Paperback

Publisher:University of British Columbia Press

Published:15th Mar '07

Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back

Saints, Sinners, and Soldiers cover

It was the “Good War.” Its cause was just; it ended the depression; and Canada’s contribution was nothing less than stellar. Canadians had every reason to applaud themselves, and the heroes that made the nation proud. But the dark truth was that not all Canadians were saints or soldiers. Indeed, many were sinners.

In this eye-opening and captivating reassessment of Canadian commitment to the cause, some disturbing questions come to light. Were citizens working as hard as possible to back the war effort? Was there illegal profiting from the conflict? Did Canadian society suffer from a general decline of “morality” during the war? Would women truly “back the attack” in new factory jobs and the military, and then quietly return home? Would unattended youth produce a crisis with juvenile delinquency? How would Canada reintegrate a million veterans who, policy-makers feared, would create a social crisis if treated like their Great War counterparts?

The first-ever synthesis of both the patriotic and the problematic in wartime Canada, Saints, Sinners, and Soldiers shows how moral and social changes, and the fears they generated, precipitated numerous, and often contradictory, legacies in law and society. From labour conflicts, to the black market, to prostitution, and beyond, Keshen acknowledges the underbelly of Canada’s Second World War, and demonstrates that the “Good War” was a complex tapestry of social forces – not all of which were above reproach.

"Saints, Sinners, and Soldiers is the first comprehensive social history of Canada in the Second World War, and it is a very good one... Jeffrey Keshen will long be remembered as the author of the pioneering work. - Graham Broad, The Beaver Jeffrey Keshen's Saints, Sinners, and Soldiers is an extraordinary look at how Canadians lived, loved, and worked on the homefront during the Second World War... Absolutely first-rate. - J.L. Granatstein, author of Canada's Army"

  • Commended for C.P. Stacey Prize, Canadian Committee for the History of the Second World War 2006 (Canada)
  • Short-listed for Raymond Klibansky Prize, Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Science 2006 (Canada)

ISBN: 9780774809245

Dimensions: unknown

Weight: 650g

416 pages