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Graphical elementBanner: From Colony to Country: A Reader's Guide to Canadian Military HistoryGraphical element
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Canadian Military History: An Overview
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First World War
General References

General Reference Sources

For a comprehensive understanding of Canada's participation in the First World War, the reader must look beyond such published bibliographies as Cooke or Rawling, which emphasize the purely military aspects of the war. Canadian history : a reader's guide situates the war within the historiography of the broader history of Canada. Arora, Artibise, Bishop, O'Dea and Peel all consider the war within a regional context, although some of these regional bibliographies have become somewhat dated. The reader should also look at the war in relation to other national experiences and for this, the bibliographies by Enser and those edited by Higham and Rohwer should be consulted. As well, the latter two contain useful review articles on the Canadian experience of the war.

Hyam and Lovering should be used along with the Library and Archives Canada website search tool, ArchiviaNet (see section on Websites), to identify record groups and manuscript collections at Library and Archives Canada containing material of interest on the First World War.

Arora, Ved, comp. -- The Saskatchewan bibliography. -- Regina : Saskatchewan Provincial Library, 1980. -- 787 p.

____. -- First supplement, 1979-1993. -- Regina : Saskatchewan Library Ass., 1993. -- 694 p.

Artibise, Alan F.J. -- Western Canada since 1870 : a select bibliography and guide. -- Vancouver : Univ. of British Columbia Press, 1978. -- 294 p.

Bishop, Olga B. et al. -- Bibliography of Ontario history, 1876-1976 : cultural, economics, political, social. -- 2nd ed. enlarged and updated. -- Toronto : Univ. of Toronto Press, 1980. -- 2 vol.

  • Continued by The bibliography of Ontario history, 1976-1986 = La bibliographie d'histoire ontarienne, 1976-1986. -- Edited by Gaétan Gervais, Gwenda Hallsworth, and Ashley Thomson. -- Toronto : Dundurn Press, 1989. -- 605 p. -- (Prepared for the Ontario Historical Society by the Institute for Northern Research and Development.)

Canadian history : a reader's guide. -- Volume 2 : Confederation to the present. -- Edited by Doug Owram. -- Toronto  : Univ. of Toronto Press, 1994.

  • See p. 60-63. There is also useful material in the sections on specific topics, such as labour or women.

Cooke, O.A. -- The Canadian military experience 1867-1995 : a bibliography = Bibliographie de la vie militaire au Canada, 1867-1995. -- 3rd ed. -- Ottawa : Directorate of History and Heritage, Dept. of National Defence, 1997. -- 520 p. -- (Department of National Defence Directorate of History and Heritage ; Monograph series no. 2)

  • Limited to works which are chiefly military.

  • Does not include journal articles.

Enser, A.G.S. -- A subject bibliography of the First World War : books in English, 1914-1987. -- 2nd ed. -- Aldershot, Eng. : Gower, 1990. -- 412 p.

  • Incomplete, and idiosyncratic on what it does include, but contains much useful material.

Hyam, Grace [et al.]. -- Manuscript Division = Division des manuscripts. -- Ottawa : National Archives of Canada, 1994. -- 41, 44 p. -- (General guide series).

Lovering, Cynthia, comp. -- Government Archives Division = Division des archives gouvernementales. -- Ottawa : National Archives of Canada, 1991. -- 154, 164 p. -- (General guide series).

McIntosh, Robert. -- "The Great War, archives, and modern memory". -- Archivaria. -- No. 46 (Fall 1998). -- P. 1-31

  • Outlines the archival history of the records of the Canadian Expeditionary Force and how archivists contribute to our understanding through the records they choose to emphasize and make available to researchers.

Martin, Robert. -- "The Great War and Canadian memory". -- Canadian military history : book review supplement. -- Issue 11 (Spring 2000). -- P. 1-6

  • An extended review essay.

Neue Forschungen zum Ersten Weltkrieg : Literaturberichte und Bibliographien von 30 Mitgliedstaaten der 'Commission internationale d'histoire militaire comparée' = Schriften der Bibliothek für Zeitgeschichte : Weltkriegsbücherei Stuttgart : Neue Folge der Bibliographien der Weltkriegsbücherei : band 25 -- Edited by Jürgen Rohwer. -- Koblenz : Bernard & Graefe Verlag, 1985. -- 406 p.

The work consists of submissions from 30 member countries on the national experience of each in the First World War. Entries are in French, German or English. For instance, the Canadian entry, listed under "Kanada," Cooke, O.A. -- "Canada's historiography and the First World War". -- P. 229-241, is in English. This pathfinder updates and expands this article.

O'Dea, Agnes C., comp. -- Bibliography of Newfoundland. -- Edited by Anne Alexander. -- Toronto : Univ. of Toronto Press, 1986. -- 2 vol.

Peel, Bruce Braden, comp. -- A bibliography of the Prairie provinces to 1953. -- 2nd ed. -- Toronto : Univ. of Toronto Press, 1973. -- 780 p.

  • Supplementary bibliography compiled by the staff of the Edmonton Public Library Western Canadiana Collection, 1986.

Rawling, Bill. -- "The Canadian military experience in the First World War". -- World War I : handbook of the literature and research. -- Edited by Robin Higham (forthcoming).

Rouillard, Jacques, dir. -- Guide d'histoire du Québec : du Régime français à nos jours : bibliographie commentée. -- Montréal : Méridien, 1991. -- [368] p.


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