New Books In Military History

Over two decades before the hard lines of the Cold War were drawn in North America, and long before any accurate information about what was happening in the Soviet Union became available to the general public, communism appeared to many a viable alternative to the shortcomings of imperialism and of Western liberal capitalism. In an increasingly interconnected world whose old poles of geopolitical power were shifting, people everywhere grappled with the economic hardships of the Great Depression. It was an era of almost palpable disenchantment with existing paradigms and a global search for new ones. In North America, Canada found itself at the interface of two ideological spaces. On the one hand, it was part of the British world and was shaped by its institutions and political structures; on the other, it was exposed to the global appeal of communist ideas, either imported from Europe or home-grown.  About 1700 Canadians were ready to risk their lives and go fight into a war that was not for their king, nor f