Ian McKay & Jamie Swift. Toronto, ON: Between the Lines, 2012; 304 pp; ISBN: 978-1-92666-277-0, paper $26.95 CAD.

Once known for peacekeeping, Canada is becoming a militarized nation whose apostles — the “new warriors” — are fighting to shift public opinion in a coordinated initiative that seeks to substitute postwar Canada’s central myth-symbol complex as a peaceable kingdom to a warrior nation. The tales cast a vivid light on a story that is crucial to Canada’s future; yet they are also compelling history. Swashbuckling marauder William Stairs, the Royal Military College graduate who helped make the Congo safe for European pillage. Vimy Ridge veteran and Second World War general Tommy Burns, leader of the UN’s first big peacekeeping operation, a soldier who would come to call imperialism “the monster of the age.” Governor General John Buchan, a concentration camp developer and race theorist who is exalted in the Harper government’s new Citizenship Guide; and that uniquely Canadian paradox, Lester Pearson. Warrior Nation is integral to discussions of efforts to conscript Canadian history.

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