The citizen soldier is a central figure in Canada’s social memory of the First World War. But is the ideal of being a citizen first and a soldier only by necessity an unchanging feature of the Canadian identity?

This compelling history traces the evolution of the Canadian amateur military tradition in the turbulent years from 1896 to 1921. Before the Great War, Canada’s military culture was in transition as Canada navigated an uncertain relationship with the United States and fought an imperial war in South Africa. Gradually, the untrained civilian replaced the long-serving volunteer militiaman as the archetypal amateur soldier, setting ... Read morethe country down a path leading directly to the battlefields of Flanders and northern France.