Embattled Nation: Canada's Wartime Election of 1917

Dutil and MacKenzie chronicle Prime Minister Borden’s new Union government and the means by which this new party was able to win the election. Weeks after the Vimy offensive, Prime Minister Sir Robert Borden issued a call for conscription — the forced enrollment of Canada’s men for service in the army. This was a nightmare election campaign, with English and French Canada bitterly divided over the question of what Canada’s role in the war should be, and, indeed, what Canada’s identity should be. Most Liberals, led by Sir Wilfrid Laurier, opposed the measure, while in Quebec, a new movement emerged to fight the government. Borden resorted to unprecedented measures in order to win. The debate of one hundred years ago still resonates today.. Embattled Nation explores Canada’s tumultuous wartime election of 1917 and the people and issues that made it a pivotal moment in Canadian history.Embattled Nation explores the drama of Canada’s tumultuous wartime election. Using new sources, this book examines the roots of this divisive election. Everyone had an opinion, and an enduring record of voter turnout was recorded in 1917

Embattled Nation is a timely re-examination of the hard-fought and bitter election campaign that shaped modern Canada by two exceptional historians, who have spent their careers immersed in the Laurier-Borden era. Presented in breezy and accessible prose, their frenzied account is the first sustained study of Canada’s first wartime election, and taps an extensive range of new private and public sources in its detailed look at the string of blunders and missed-opportunities that put Canada’s national unity on the line in 1917. Greg Donaghy, Head of Historical Section, Global Affairs Canada) . A sobering reminder that politics matters! (Dr

He lives in Toronto. He is also the editor of Canada and the First World War. David MacKenzie is professor of History at Ryerson University and the author of several books on Canadian history and international relations. He is the author and editor of many books on various aspects of Canadian po