Canada World War

NATIONAL BESTSELLER FINALIST FOR THE OTTAWA BOOK AWARDS A masterful telling of the way World War Two has been remembered, forgotten, and remade by Canada over seventy-five years. The Second World War shaped modern Canada. It led to the country's emergence as a middle power on the world stage...

From our country's most important war historian, a gripping account of the turbulent relationship between Canada and the US during the Second World War. The two nations entered the war amidst rivalry and mutual suspicion, but learned to fight together before emerging triumphant and bound by an...

For the Allied armies fighting their way up the Italian boot in early 1944, Rome was the prize that could only be won through a massive offensive. Military historian Mark Zuehlke returns to the Mediterranean theater of World War II with this gripping tribute to the Canadians who opened the way for the Allies to take Rome. The book is a fitting testament to the bravery of soldiers like the badly wounded Captain Pierre Potvin, who survived more than 30 hours alone on the battlefield.

A Hill Times’ Top 100 Best Book in 2025 FOREWORD BY CHERIE WONG National security expert Dennis Molinaro reveals the shocking details of Beijing’s five-decades-long effort to influence and interfere in Canadian political life. From cultivating future political leaders at the end of the...

Stretching like an armor-toothed belt across Italy's upper thigh, the Gothic Line was the most fortified position the German army had yet thrown into the Allied forces' path. On August 25, 1944, it fell to Canadian troops to spearhead a major offensive: to rip through that fiercely defended line. This gripping chronicle tells, through the eyes of the soldiers who fought there, of the 28-day clash that ultimately ended in glory for the Canadians.

Panzer Gunner is a unique memoir of a Canadian serving in a German armored division. Bruno Friesen explains what it was like to fight in a tank on the Eastern Front and provides details on the battlefield performance of the Panzer IV tank. Six months before World War II erupted in 1939, Bruno Friesen was sent to Germany by his father in hopes of a better life. Friesen was drafted into the Wehrmacht three years later and ended up in the 7th Panzer Division. Friesen experienced intense combat against the Soviets in Romania, Lithuania, and West Prussia. 

At D-Day's end, the Canadians, who had landed on Juno Beach, were six miles inland - the deepest penetration achieved by Allied forces on this infamous day. But every soldier on this front line knew worse was yet to come. For in the darkness the Germans were massing, intent on throwing them back to sea. With dramatic intensity, Holding Juno re-creates the ensuing battle and ultimate Canadian triumph and includes fascinating first-person soldier accounts as well as photos and maps.

For nearly 100 years Canada's role in ending WWI sooner than anyone thought possible has gone largely unrecognized. The Canadian Corp led by citizen soldier, Arthur Currie, became the premiere fighting force on the Western Front. The fact that Canada was not yet a formalized nation but a Dominion at the close of the war may be the reason for the absence of recognition yet the record of the Canadian WWI military accomplishments is irrefutable.

Comedy superstar Mike Myers writes from the (true patriot) heart about his 53-year relationship with his beloved Canada. Mike Myers is a world-renowned actor, director and writer and the man behind some of the most memorable comic characters of our time. But, as he says, "No description of me is truly complete without saying I'm a Canadian". He has often winked and nodded to Canada in his outrageously accomplished body of work, but now he turns the spotlight full-beam on his homeland.

In one furious week of fighting in December 1943, the First Canadian Infantry Division took Ortona, Italy, from elite German paratroopers ordered to hold the medieval port at all costs. When the battle was over, the Canadians emerged victorious despite heavy losses.

From the author of the runaway bestseller A Train in Winter comes the extraordinary story of a French village that helped save thousands, including many Jewish children, who were pursued by the Gestapo during World War II. Le Chambon-sur-Lignon is a small village of scattered...

Have you ever wondered how the world got to where it is today? Get ready to discover the rich history of our planet. You will be astonished to learn about some of the events that have occurred! Subjects include: Ancient Greece, Ancient Egypt, The Roman Empire, Constantine and Christianity, India, Ancient Korea, Chinese Dynasties, Napoleonic Europe, Foundation of USA, The 1812 War, Australia and Wars, World War I, World War II, The Ottoman Empire, Greece and North Africa, The Diem Regime, Pearl Harbor, and much more!

NATIONAL BESTSELLER An incredibly evocative and action-filled story of one man’s fight in the First World War, rich and raw with remarkable detail. As he tended to the chores on his homestead, Lester Harper never imagined that he would turn in his hoe for a Lee-Enfield rifle on the Western...

“How can you do this work if you have a child?” asked her mother. “It is because I have a child that I do it,” replied Cecile. “This is not a world I wish her to grow up in.” On January 24, 1943, 230 women were placed in four cattle trucks on a train in Compiegne, in northeastern...

"First, I’ll tell about the robbery our parents committed. Then the murders, which happened later.” So begins Canada, the unforgettable story of a boy attempting to find grace, written by the only writer in history to win both the Pulitzer Prize and Pen/Faulkner Award for a single novel...

During World War II, Canada trained tens of thousands of airmen under the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan. Those selected for Bomber Command operations went on to rain devastation upon the Third Reich in the great air battles over Europe, but their losses were high. German fighters and anti-aircraft guns took a terrifying toll. The chances of surviving a tour of duty as a bomber crew were almost nil.

INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY VOGUE THE NEW YORKER THE GUARDIAN VOX THE WASHINGTON POST BOOKPAGE Both epic and intimate, the story of one man's life across generations and historical upheavals. From the Suez Crisis to the Cuban Missile Crisis, the...

When the Lights Went Out tells the story of a moment in the 1987 World Junior Championship that forever changed the lives of the players involved, and ignited a debate that ….

Canada is not one nation, but three: English Canada, Quebec, and First Nations. Yet as a country Canada is very successful, in part because it maintains national diversity through bilingualism, multiculturalism, and federalism. Alongside this contemporary openness Canada also has its own history to contend with; with a legacy of broken treaties and residential schools for its Indigenous peoples, making reconciliation between Canada and First Nations an ongoing journey, not a destination.

The astonishing true story of a boy who survived the war by hiding in the Polish forest Maxwell Smart was eleven years old when his entire family was killed before his eyes. He might have died along with them, but his mother selflessly ordered him to save himself. Alone in the forest, he dug a...