History

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This is the collection for the University of Waterloo's Department of History.

Research outputs are organized by type (eg. Master Thesis, Article, Conference Paper).

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Now showing 1 - 20 of 149

Abandoning Private Femininity: Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, the 1784 Westminster Election, and Its Implications for the History of Women in Politics
(University of Waterloo, 2022-04-26) McManus, Madison Summer
My thesis argues that women had a powerful influence on politics long before the fight for suffrage in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and that the focus in political history on “high politics” has not allowed for women’s less formal involvement in politics to be recognized as it should be. I discuss the socio-political culture of eighteenth-century England, including the nature of the role of women in politics and how it aligns with the social expectations of women during the eighteenth century. I analyze the impact of Georgiana, the Duchess of Devonshire, on the 1784 Westminster election, as well as her prominent role within the Whig party. Finally, I discuss the rise of the newspaper press’s influence on politics in the eighteenth century and how its harsh criticisms of Georgiana played a role in not only causing Georgiana to take a step back from politics, but also reduced the visible activity of women in politics for the next hundred years.
"The Academy Award of Protest": Media, Cooptation, and Radical Identity in the Sixties
(University of Waterloo, 2015-08-31) Arnold-Levene, Arielle
Through the 1960s and into the early 1970s, radicals in the New Left and the counterculture struggled with how to remain relevant and authentic in the face of skewed and selective mainstream media representation. They often referred to this kind of media representation of their politics and their culture as “cooptation” or “neutralization,” as mainstream society adopted the most attractive, salable aspects of dissident style, while leaving behind its most radical or threatening elements. This thesis examines how dissidents struggled with cooptation, but also how they themselves coopted “establishment” institutions for their own radical purposes. It then examines how dissident culture attempted to define radical authenticity and radical purity amongst themselves and amongst mainstream society, as they confronted the pressures of the radical lifestyle.
After October: An Analysis of John F. Kennedy's Foreign Policy after the Cuban Missile Crisis
(University of Waterloo, 2015-09-04) Des Roches, Andrew Murphy
This thesis analyzes President John F. Kennedy’s articulation of foreign policy after the near nuclear confrontation in October 1962. This thesis finds that the Cuban Missile Crisis had a very profound effect on the president, which became evident in his policy towards Cuba and the Soviet Union. In Cuba, the president slowly began considering other options than the destabilisation of Castro. Despite significant domestic pressure, President Kennedy developed a nuanced policy in Cuba that reflected the growing acceptance of Castro and the communist government in Havana. President Kennedy’s overtures to the Soviet Union likewise demonstrate his statesmanship. Throughout 1963, Kennedy worked diligently to ensure some meaningful diplomacy could be achieved with his counterpart Chairman Nikita Khrushchev. Kennedy continued to push for better relations between the two superpowers until his tragic assassination on November 22, 1963. This paper is a contribution to the study of the Cuban Missile Crisis and the inherent limitations of nuclear weapons as a tool of foreign policy.
Alikomiak and Tatamigana: Justice and Injustice in the Canadian Arctic
(University of Waterloo, 2016-11-15) Beiler, Lisa
In 1922, two Inuit men—Alikomiak and Tatamigana—were arrested on the Coronation Gulf near Tree River in connection with the killing of six other Inuit. While in Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) custody, Alikomiak killed the arresting RCMP officer as well as a Hudson’s Bay Company trapper who lived at the post. These killings set off a judicial process that would see both Inuinnait men tried and hanged on Herschel Island, Yukon, in the first criminal trial and execution of Inuit held in the Canadian Arctic. Through a microhistorical analysis, this thesis addresses the following questions: What do the trials of Alikomiak and Tatamigana reveal about the larger social fabric of Inuinnait culture in the early part of the twentieth century? How does Inuinnait culture intersect with the broader social and political imperatives at play in 1920s Canada? After interrogating the wealth of archival evidence (i.e., statements, trial transcripts, correspondence, and ethnographic reports) many salient aspects of Inuinnait culture emerge, including attitudes towards marriage, infanticide, and the role of anger and sanctioned killing in Inuit society. Through an examination of the details of this case, it becomes clear that the Canadian justice system contrasted sharply and clashed with Inuinnait traditional justice. Yet, the story that emerges from the archival documents reveals a nuanced account of contact between Inuinnait and non-Inuinnait as well as Canadian political and sovereignty priorities and the imposition of southern jurisprudence in northern Canada. But importantly, the history of Alikomiak and Tatamigana’s conflict with Canadian law is also a story of the persistence of Inuinnait culture and justice in the North.
All Roads Lead to Rome: Canada, the Freedom From Hunger Campaign, and the Rise of NGOs, 1960-1980
(University of Waterloo, 2007-07-20T13:35:29Z) Bunch, Matthew James
The United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization’s Freedom From Hunger Campaign was a world wide campaign to raise awareness of the problem of hunger and malnutrition and possible solutions to that problem. The Campaign was launched in 1960, and brought UN Agencies, governments, NGOs, private industry, and a variety of groups and individuals together in cooperation and common cause. FAO Director- General B.R. Sen used FFHC to modernize the work of international development and to help transform FAO from a technical organization into a development agency. FFHC pioneered the kinds of relationships among governments, governmental organizations, NGOs, and other organizations and agencies taken for granted today. Canada was one of more than 100 countries to form a national FFH committee, and support for the Campaign in Canada was strong. Conditions in Canada in the 1960s favoured the kind of Campaign Sen envisioned, and the ideas underpinning FFHC resonated with an emerging Canadian nationalism in that period. The impact of FFHC can be identified in the development efforts of government, Canadian NGOs, private industries, and a variety of organizations. Significantly, the reorganization of Canada’s aid program and institutions reflected closely developments at FAO and FFHC. Participation in FFHC had important, lasting effects in Canada, and Canada made one of the strongest contributions to the Campaign.
Animosity, Ambivalence and Co-operation: Manifestations of heterogeneous German Identities in the Kitchener-Waterloo area during and after the Second World War.
(University of Waterloo, 2008-09-26T15:52:07Z) Lovasz, Bastian Bryan
Much has been written about how the city of Berlin, Ontario – long a centre of Germanic industry and culture in Canada –changed its name to Kitchener in 1916 in the face of anti-German sentiments. Studies by Geoffrey Hayes and Ross Fair have particularly identified how a more acceptable form of German identity evolved in Kitchener after 1918, emphasizing the Pennsylvania Mennonite origins of many of the area’s first non-native settlers, instead of the continental German identity of much of the citizenry. But what of the Second World War, and the wave of German immigrants that came to Waterloo Region in its aftermath? Through what means did this community of immigrants establish its identity, and come to terms with the legacy of wartime Germany? How did the German community continue to evolve and react to political and social currents reverberating in Europe? This study addresses these questions by examining a number of episodes in the twentieth century that both celebrated and divided local German communities. Three examples will be discussed to help elucidate the concept of complex German identities in Kitchener-Waterloo. The formation of the Deutsche Bund Canada at the time of the Second World War, the creation of Oktoberfest in Kitchener-Waterloo in the late 1960s, as well as the visit of David Irving to Kitchener in 1992 represent events in the history of the area that lend themselves very naturally to further examination. While German immigrants have historically been regarded as a cohesive community, unified by attributes such as a shared language, it will be argued here based on these three examples, that Germans in Kitchener-Waterloo are comprised of unique groupings of ‘Germans’, whose identities vary depending on attributes such as geographic origin and time frame of emigration.
Another Life, Another World: The Spiritual Origins of Spaceflight
(University of Waterloo, 2023-01-26) Snopek, Ryan
This work reassesses the origins of the idea of humanity’s destiny in outer space, examining the development of popular enthusiasm about extraterrestrial life and reincarnation in Europe and America from the early nineteenth century to the early twentieth century. It connects popular interest in the afterlife to transcendental and spiritualistic perceptions of outer space, which originated as mystical and theological ideas which over the course of the nineteenth century became increasingly secular and scientific. The result was a utopian view of humanity’s future on other planets, one which transformed from the spiritual to the physical and inspired early rocket pioneers to seriously theorise and advocate for spaceflight, leading to the ultimate achievement of this goal in the 1960s.
Arboriculture and the Environment in Manosque, 1341 - 1404
(University of Waterloo, 2010-08-31T17:06:30Z) Chamilliard, Tyler
This thesis uses records of criminal inquisitions from 1341 to 1404 to take up the question of medieval environmental consciousness. These records were created in the Provençal town of Manosque. The town’s region extended along six kilometres of the Durance river-valley, and is home to an ecosystem unique to the south of France and to the Mediterranean. This ecosystem was intelligibly manipulated through human industry to support, in part, a pre-plague population of about five thousand inhabitants. The statutes and privileges granted to the town illustrate a unique community, governed by the local commander of the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem and negotiated through the efforts of the burgess elites, who were predominantly local merchants and notaries. Over the period of 1341 to 1404, the court dealt with twenty-eight tree-related crimes, including theft, damage, cutting, arson, disagreement, and assault of the Manosquin arboriculture. The court’s stated intention with these cases was to regulate deviant behaviour in regards to the established customs of property. Along with the addition of a corpus of modern environmental scholarship, a nuanced interpretation of the medieval European economy appears, in which the balance, or imbalance of human interaction with the environment play a critical role. So, the basic question posed herein is this: what can the conflicts of fourteenth-century rural inhabitants offer to modern scholars in search of pre-industrial environmental awareness?
“The Art of Getting Drunk:” Martial Masculinity, Alcohol, and the British Army in the Canadas in the War of 1812
(University of Waterloo, 2023-02-14) Abbott, Jesse
This thesis argues that alcohol consumption, both real and perceived, played a key role in the construction and negotiation of masculine identities within the British army in the Canadas during the early nineteenth century. Officers in particular proved their manliness and constructed their dual gentleman-officer identity not only by fighting well, but also by socializing and drinking well; by demonstrating what the famous moral essayist, Dr. Samuel Johnson, called “skill in inebriation,” or the “art of getting drunk.” An officer’s capability or skill in drinking with his fellow gentlemen-officers denoted manliness, while habitual or public drunkenness had the opposite effect. His polite consumption in both public and private social settings defined him as a gentleman, while his strong consumption on the battlefield fortified his constitution and facilitated his performance as a warrior. His heavy consumption with peers established his place within a hierarchy of manliness, and his condemnation of the propensity for drink and the drunken comportment of his perceived social inferiors established his position atop larger gendered, classed, and racialized hierarchies in colonial society. Officers constructed their own masculine identity in direct relation to those with whom they interacted, specifically enlisted soldiers (and NCOs), Indigenous allies, and American enemies, and these constructions were heavily informed by early nineteenth century perceptions of alcohol.
Automated Downloading with Wget
(The Editorial Board of the Programming Historian, 2012-06-27) Milligan, Ian
Wget is a useful program, run through your computer’s command line, for retrieving online material. It can be useful in the following situations: Retrieving or mirroring (creating an exact copy of) an entire website. This website might contain historical documents, or it may simply be your own personal website that you want to back up. One command can download the entire site onto your computer. Downloading specific files in a website’s hierarchy (all websites within a certain part of a website, such as every page that is contained within the /papers/ directory of a website). In this lesson, we will work through three quick examples of how you might use wget in your own work. At the end of the lesson, you will be able to quickly download large amounts of information from the Internet in an automated fashion. If you find a repository of online historical information, instead of right-clicking on every file and saving it to build your dataset, you will have the skills to craft a single command to do so.
'The Best Covered War in History': Intimate Perspectives from the Battlefields of Iraq
(University of Waterloo, 2017-09-28) mclaughlin, andrew
This study examines combat operations from the 2003 invasion of Iraq from the “ground up.” It utilizes unique first-person accounts that offer insights into the realities of modern warfare which include effects on soldiers, the local population, and journalists who were tasked with reporting on the action. It affirms the value of media embedding to the historian, as hundreds of journalists witnessed major combat operations firsthand. This line of argument stands in stark contrast to other academic assessments of the embedding program, which have criticized it by claiming media bias and military censorship. Here, an examination of the cultural and social dynamics of an army at war provides agency to soldiers, combat reporters, and innocent civilians caught in the crossfire.
Biconfessionalism and Tolerance: The Peace of Augsburg in Three Imperial Cities
(University of Waterloo, 2016-09-14) Szepesi, Istvan
In contrast to the atmosphere of mistrust and division between confessions that was common to most polities during the Reformation era, the Peace of Augsburg, signed in 1555, declared the free imperial cities of the Holy Roman Empire a place where both Catholics and Lutherans could live together in peace. While historians readily acknowledge the exceptional nature of this clause of the Peace, they tend to downplay its historical significance through an undue focus on its long-term failures. In order to challenge this interpretation, this paper examines the successes and failures of the free imperial cities’ implementation of the Peace through a comparative analysis of religious coexistence in Augsburg, Cologne, and Nuremberg during the Peace’s 63-year duration. This investigation reveals that while religious coexistence did eventually fail first in Nuremberg and then in Cologne, the Peace made major strides in the short term which offer important insights into the nature of tolerance and confessional conflict in urban Germany during the late Reformation era.
Boston Divided
(University of Waterloo, 2009-08-28T18:59:06Z) Hutchinson, Kerri Anne-Marie
In 1974 Boston, Massachusetts was forced to confront its civil rights violations. In the case of Morgan v. Hennigan, Judge W. Arthur Garrity Jr. found the city of Boston guilty of intentionally segregating its public schools and ordered Boston to bus students to achieve integration. When busing commenced in the fall of 1974, Boston was a city divided. The citizens of Boston were divided into two main groups: the opponents and supporters but there was no uniform consensus in either group. This study will argue that the motivations for support or opposition were multi-faceted. Those who supported busing had varied reasons for their support and those who opposed busing had varied reasons for their opposition. Through the examination of local and national newspapers and letters of public opinion this work elucidates how Judge Garrity and the Morgan v. Hennigan decision were represented and perceived throughout the city.
Bourassa’s War: Henri Bourassa and the First World War
(University of Waterloo, 2015-01-26) Keelan, Geoff
This dissertation examines the perspective of French Canadian nationalist Henri Bourassa during the First World War from 1914-1918. Bourassa was one of the best-known voices rejecting the war’s purpose and value in Canada. He consistently offered detailed and in-depth analytical critiques of the war. He first accepted Canadian participation from August 1914 to January 1916, but his position gradually shifted from cautious support to outright rejection. This dissertation argues that Henri Bourassa has traditionally been understood as a domestic commentator in Canada, but during the war years he wrote in the pages of his newspaper Le Devoir to address a wide variety of international issues. He was one of a few Canadians who looked out to the world and interpreted global events for his readers. Historians have already recounted in detail his thoughts about the Ontario bilingual schools crisis, conscription, the December 1917 election, and the Easter Riots of 1918. This work examines Bourassa’s thoughts on diplomacy between the belligerent nations and that of Pope Benedict XV, international events like the Easter Rising in Ireland and the American entry into the war. It re-examines his domestic commentary concerning the Canadian home front in light of his position on international issues, especially his growing anxiety over militarism and the deterioration of Canadian democracy. He believed that the war, which was ostensibly fought for democracy and liberty, was drastically changing the Allied nations and transforming them into the sort of autocratic states against which they fought. This thesis concludes that Bourassa adopted an intellectual approach to the war that deconstructed its impact at home and abroad, and stands as one of Canada’s foremost thinkers during the war years.
The British Invasion: Finding Traction in America
(University of Waterloo, 2018-09-05) Vona, Piacentino
As a period of American History, the 1960s has provided historians and academics with a wealth of material for research and scholarship. Presidents John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson and Richard Nixon, the Vietnam War, the hippie era, and the Civil Rights Movement, among other topics have received thorough historical discussion and debate. Music was another key aspect in understanding the social history of the 1960s. But unlike the people and events mentioned above, historians have devoted less attention to music in the historical landscape. The British Invasion was one such key event that impacted America in the 1960s. Bands such as the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, and the Who found their way into the United States and majorly impacted American society. Using secondary sources, newspaper articles, interviews and documentaries on these bands, this thesis explores the British Invasion and its influence in the context of 1960s America. This thesis explores multiple bands that came in the initial wave. It follows these bands from 1964-1969, and argues that the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, and the Who shared common multiple factors that allowed them to attain the traction to succeed and to maintain that success in the United States. Referred to as the Big Three throughout the thesis, these three bands managed to enjoy success on a level previously unprecedented for British bands or singers through influential managers, era-defining hits, use of television and film, master songwriters, evolution of their music, and their staying power. All these factors, combined, allowed the them to succeed in America. In contrast, not every British Invasion band was as fortunate, as Gerry and the Pacemakers, the Yardbirds, the Animals, the Zombies, and the Dave Clark Five failed to maintain success in America after their initial hit songs. Regardless, the British Invasion had a lasting impact on music in the United States and helped usher in the era of Classic Rock.
“By Their Own Efforts”: First Nations Health Policy in Canada, 1940s-1970s
(University of Waterloo, 2023-09-20) Vorobej, Lucy
This dissertation explores the early years of Ottawa’s 20th century integration policy with a focus on the impact of settler-colonial power and priorities on First Nations’ access to Canadian health care systems under it. Using critical discourse analysis and the theoretical frameworks of Post-Colonialism and Critical Race Theory to read “along the grain of colonial common sense,” this study explores settler archives to examine the discourses, policies, and practices of settler political and bureaucratic leadership from the 1940s to the 1970s. I argue that Ottawa’s policy of integration, despite settler pronouncements of its break from the past, represented a profound continuity of settler desires for Indigenous erasure and White settler power. As a result, many settler politicians and department officials chose willful blindness to First Nations’ assertions of their Indigenous or treaty rights to health care—deemed to be threats to the status quo. In their place, settler leadership drew on racialized myths of First Nations landlessness and “a primitive unproductive” culture to claim exclusive sovereignty, to “justify” settler incursion, and to offer access to settler health care systems on settler terms. Ultimately, Ottawa’s approach produced a system of profound harm. It left Ottawa’s Indian Health Service unprioritized and underfunded, its mandate unwanted by provincial governments, and its policies the target of resistance from many First Nations individuals and communities. My dissertation joins with a rising number of health care historians who recognize that the history of settler-colonialism and systemic racism is a necessary addition to the history of health care in Canada. Specifically, my research will result in a richer understanding of how racialization continued to impact First Nations access to health care during a political period in Canadian history when overt racial discrimination was no longer sanctioned and details how settler efforts to develop policy in “First Nations best interests” operated largely to serve settler aims.
Canada's Hunt for the Harmsworth Technology and Nationalism (1934-1961)
(University of Waterloo, 2009-09-03T18:37:13Z) Boniface, Edward
Beginning in the 1940s, two Canadian families tried to challenge for the Harmsworth Trophy, symbol of international power-boating supremacy. Canada's Hunt for the Harmsworth follows first the Wilsons of Ingersoll Ontario, then the Thompsons of London, as they tried to build and race the fastest speedboat of their day. The paper illustrates the impact of technology on Canadians in post Second World War Canada, and it demonstrates how the story of these challengers caught the imagination of the press and the nation. Canada's Hunt for the Harmsworth chronicles a story that could never again unfold as it did, and concludes that in attempting to master the technology of the time, simple sportsmen were seen as celebrities, even heroes.
Canada, Great Britain, and the Ukrainian Famine: Failing to Respond to a Humanitarian Crisis, 1932-33
(University of Waterloo, 2016-10-12) McCormick-Johnson, Andrew David
The Ukrainian famine of 1932-33, also known as the Holodomor, is regarded by historians as one of the twentieth century’s worst human catastrophes. While it took decades for the famine to receive suitably detailed analysis from historians, and with it the recognition that the famine was not an entirely natural occurrence, it has since achieved widespread recognition as a huge catastrophe for the people of the Ukraine. The famine, occurring on such a massive scale because of the deliberate action of Joseph Stalin’s Soviet communist regime, which exacerbated natural hardships in the area, is still not as widely known today as other mass crimes against humanity occurring in modern history where most of the general public are concerned. Therefore it is unsurprising that even those scholars who are familiar with the famine are still unfamiliar with the role that the international community played while millions of Ukrainians were perishing of starvation. While this deliberately inflicted starvation upon the Ukrainian people was carried out by the totalitarian Soviet communist dictatorship, some historians also ask whether Stalin’s regime relied upon the Western liberal democracies to help him accomplish his end of eliciting the total submission of the Ukrainian people. Whether through awareness of what was happening in the Soviet Ukraine and remaining silent, or continuing their economic relations with the Soviets in spite of such knowledge, the political representatives and private businesses of Western nations have attracted accusations from a few scholars that they indirectly helped to ensure that Stalin’s goals were accomplished without hindrance. Ultimately, however, it was the inability to take concerted action, affected by the realities of the political and economic concerns of the day, that prevented Western nations from using the means available to them to act effectively. These means included either making an appeal to the League of Nations or enacting a full boycott on Soviet goods (a partial boycott having been enacted early during the tenure of the Canadian government of R.B. Bennett), neither of which materialized as actions by the British or Canadians. Though the reports prepared by individuals such as Andrew Cairns relayed in detail the realities of the famine to these governments, and though their populations were informed via the efforts of journalists such as Malcolm Muggeridge and Gareth Jones, this knowledge in itself could not bring about a meaningful change in policy. The economic partnership between the USSR and Western nations began at the start of the period of Soviet collectivization of agriculture and was already firmly established and functioning by the time that the Ukraine became the target of Stalin’s aggressive agricultural policies. Canada and the United Kingdom were among the Western governments which did business with the Soviet regime in order to purchase its cheap exported grain. With time, however, these governments became more aware of the impact that the Soviet policy of collectization was having upon the peasantry.. The trade in grain between the Soviet Union and these nations occurred both before and during the Ukrainian famine . This thesis aims to explore whether or not the governments of Great Britain and Canada became aware, through the correspondence of their representatives in the Soviet Union (and through their correspondence with one another’s government bureaus), that the famine in the Ukraine was the result of deliberate Soviet policy, and if so, what prevented them from taking action or raising protest using the means and methods at their disposal that would have been realistic at the time. Contemporary historians recognize that a significant portion of what is currently known about life in the Soviet Union comes from documents that Western scholars were only able to access after the fall of communism. That being said, at the time of the Ukrainian famine, there were various Western observers in the USSR whose firsthand experiences made the reality of the situation apparent even without their having access to the inner political workings and policy decisions of Stalin’s Kremlin. In seeking to provide context for why these governments failed to take action as millions of people were deliberately starved to death, despite the information on the subject being at their disposal, this thesis interrogates more deeply the events in question. In the process it will pose a series of additional questions; To what extent were the Canadian and British governments aware of the famine, and its roots in pre-meditated Soviet policies? If they were aware of it, what if anything did they do in response? If they desired to make official protest or to take some form of action against the Soviet regime, what alternatives were there available at the time that could have realistically been pursued? Was the Canadian government response at all affected by its prior history with the Ukrainian minority in Canada? In essence, the governments of Great Britain and Canada became aware through their representatives that the famine in the Soviet Ukraine was artificially created by Stalin’s regime as an act of political violence against the Ukrainian people. The Canadian government had a complicated history with Canada’s Ukrainian minority, one rendered turbulent by the anxieties surrounding the presence of “enemy aliens” in Canada during the First World War and the Russian Civil War, which combined with widespread feelings of nativist hostility towards ethnic minorities meant that as late as the early 1930s some Ukrainians were regarded with suspicion by Ottawa as being potentially disloyal. However, due to R.B. Bennett’s staunch anti-communism, Canada was prepared to work with Great Britain in trying to use the methods available at the time to both nations to take punitive economic and political action in the face of Soviet human rights abuses. Unfortunately, in the end the realities of foreign trade, of the global economic climate and international relations meant these governments were unable to take meaningful action to alleviate the suffering of the Ukrainians. To provide context to the relationship between the Ukrainians in Canada (and by extension the Ukrainian people) and the Canadian government, this thesis shall also examine how the history of Ukrainian immigrants in Canada until the early 1930s involved a high degree of intercultural conflict, hostility, bigotry and animosity directed at the Ukrainians by the English-speaking majority, resulting in the Ukrainian immigrants being the victim of official prejudices that were still recent history in 1932. Whether or not this history of tense relations affected the Canadian government’s response to the protests for action of the sizeable Ukrainian community in Canada is another matter to consider . The role of Great Britain will also be considered, given that these Ukrainians were British subjects as well as citizens of Canada, and the two governments during this period cooperated closely in making economic and political decisions that impacted the British Empire as a whole as much as its individual colonies and dominions. The thesis will also examine the Ukrainian famine (also known as the Holodomor) itself, in order to explore the premeditated manner in which Stalin’s regime went about consciously constructing a campaign of mass starvation against the Ukrainian people as a calculated act of political warfare. Then it examines how the government of Great Britain became aware of the famine and its artificial origins through their observers in the Soviet Union, and how the Canadian government became informed. The famine was initially seized upon by anti-communist politicians such as Canadian Prime Minister R.B. Bennett) as further motivation for the countries of the British Commonwealth to enact an embargo on Soviet imports to their countries . It shall then outline how economic realities (such as dependence on Soviet imports) resulted in the failure of their plans to punish the Soviets economically. This information shall support the argument that the British and Canadians were quite aware of the artificial nature of the Ukrainian famine, but opted not to protest to the Soviet government or cease trade relations with the USSR because of economic considerations. The early history of the Ukrainians in Canada provides a window into how public opinion (specifically the opinion of the English-speaking majority) regarded the Ukrainians, the origins of the widespread hostility and prejudice against them, and how the events that befell them during the first few decades of their history in Canada was affected by a combination of the unfolding of events in international and domestic politics and by the actions of a few outspoken members of the Ukrainian-Canadian community. The established historiography on the background of the Holodomor itself and its origins in the deliberate policy of the Soviet state (and the machinations of Joseph Stalin) demonstrate how, besides being a humanitarian crisis, the Ukrainian famine was an artificially created crisis, one which stood to be affected significantly by the action or inaction of external forces. . Furthermore, the existing historiography also provides insight into how Canadian and British politicians viewed the famine. Primary sources shed new light into their decision making processes, while secondary sources reveal how these decisions were affected by the ideological viewpoints of the politicians and their pragmatic considerations of the economic and political realities. Primary sources, ranging from British and Canadian government documents to newspaper articles from major contemporary publications such as the Globe provide further insight into why the events in question took the course they did, incorporating information that which most secondary historians have not yet incorporated into their own research. These sources will range from contemporary newspapers, magazines, books and pamphlets from various countries to dossiers of information compiled by governments in order to brief politicians and civil servants, providing insight into the thoughts and activities of these governments and the current affairs that affected their decisions. Historians seldom touch upon Canadian trade with the Soviet Union during the first twenty years of the Soviet regime, or on the role of Canada under the leadership of R.B. Bennett in trying to assist the British Empire in reconciling ideological opposition to Soviet communism with the economic realities of international trade during the Great Depression. The Canadian government’s awareness of the famine is in itself a rarely discussed topic, let alone that this burgeoning awareness occurred at the same time that Bennett was urging the entire British Empire to boycott Soviet goods in an effort to crush international communism. While Bennett’s domestic anti-communism is a well-known aspect of his policies while in office, that it also materialized itself as a campaign to try and strangle the USSR economically is far from well known, let alone the eventual faltering of his campaign . While all of these elements have been touched upon in individual secondary sources, no scholar has brought them into dialogue to furnish a broader narrative involving British imperial economic relations with the Soviet Union during this period. There is another factor that must be taken into account. A significant portion of the historiography created regarding the early history of Ukrainians in Canada, the Ukrainian-Canadian internment between 1914 and 1921, and Ukrainian-Canadian history in the interwar period, has been chronicled by Ukrainian-Canadian historians. Their work has often been published by organizations devoted to the preservation of Ukrainian-Canadian history and to the commemoration of such events as their wartime internment. There is a distinct danger that the historical narrative they present may be one that emphasizes Ukrainian historical victimhood at the hands of the English-speaking Canadian majority, in an effort to obtain compensation for what they regard as past wrongdoings against their people. Whatever wrongdoing may have occurred, as vital as these historians’ work may be to exploring the subject, effort shall be made whenever possible to avoid the simple repetition of the narrative presented in their books, and to temper it with additional information that will hopefully present the subject in a more complex light.
Canadian Newspapers and the Paris Peace Conference of 1919: A Study of English-Language Media Opinion
(University of Waterloo, 2008-05-16T00:17:21Z) Sauntry, Victor
This thesis is a study of English-language media opinion in relation to Canada’s involvement in the Paris Peace Conference of 1919. Using The News Record, The Globe and the Manitoba Free Press, this thesis will examine how the English Canadian press presented the Paris Peace Conference to Canadians from November 1918 to its signing in June 1918. Historians have traditionally presented the Peace Conference as a turning point in Canadian history that accelerated Canada’s maturity from a colony to a fully-fledged nation. This paper will argue that Canadians’ understanding of the Paris Peace Conference of 1919 was far more complex than the orthodox interpretation would suggest. While Canadian newspapers were concerned with Canada’s status, they devoted far more attention to other matters. Canadian newspapers spent time discussing reparations, the Kaiser, old diplomacy and the future League of Nations.
The Canadian War Crimes Liaison Detachment - Far East and the Prosecution of Japanese "Minor" War Crimes
(University of Waterloo, 2013-12-02) Sweeney, Mark
The members of the Canadian War Crimes Liaison Detachment – Far East travelled across the Pacific in April 1946 to participate in “minor” war crimes trials in Hong Kong and Japan. The assignment stemmed from the harrowing experiences of the Winnipeg Grenadiers and Royal Rifles of Canada in Hong Kong and Japan following the Japanese invasion in December 1941 through to their liberation from POW camps at the end of the Pacific War. Literature pertaining to war crimes trials during this period focuses primarily on the Nuremberg and other European trials, or on the major, often politicized Tokyo Trial. This dissertation addresses the frequently proffered recommendation in the literature that further explorations into the “minor” trials of 5600 Japanese war criminals are needed. The members of the Canadian Detachment served as prosecutors at the American operated Yokohama War Crimes Trials, as well as the British Hong Kong War Crimes Courts. Their cases covered the entirety of the POW experience, from atrocities during battle and in the immediate aftermath, to brutal abuses and medical neglect in POW camps and exploitation in war-related and dangerous labour. The Canadian trials were steeped in emerging and evolving legal concepts including issues of command responsibility and superior orders, as well as the use of common or joint trials and broadly expanded rules of evidence. The uncertainty of trial outcomes and the leniency of many of the sentences combined with the genuine effort extended by the Canadian Detachment members in investigation, case development, and in the courtroom belie the crude and misguided application of a victors’ justice framework. Although the trials were not marked with a clear sense of unfairness, their historical legacy has ultimately been a failure. When the international community sought answers to war crimes starting in the latter half of the twentieth century, these trial records have been left to gather dust on archive shelves. However, the transcripts offer historians the opportunity to better understand both the brutality and banality of the POW experience, and the legal community a series of pragmatic and thorough avenues for addressing violations of the laws and customs of war.

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