Canada and the Two World Wars by J.L. Granatstein and Desmond Morris, Key Porter Books, 347 pages, $42.00

Once upon a time, history lessons consisted mostly of learning about the past through memorizing dates and facts, without much examination of what history has to teach us. So, pronto, along come the 1960s, which produced a generation determined to clear out of the curriculum anything that appeared to be useless and boring information. Now history is taught little or not at all in our schools. But, this clear-out threw the baby out with the dirty bath water, for at least the little that was formerly taught with insight and useful information, gave students a bit of a perspective on the past, and what lessons might be learned from it.

It is, therefore, highly recommended that those born from the 1950s onward take a quick trip to their nearest bookstore to purchase "Canada and The Two World Wars". This book's two authors, J.L. Granatstein and Desmond Morris, have combined their efforts to give Canadians an excellent history lesson. They looked not just at battles, but at the political landscape of Canada before and during the two World Wars that so ravaged the 20^th Century, and to which Canada contributed far more than could have possibly been expected of a nation with a then small population.

There are many lessons to be learned, lessons that our politicians are in bitter need of now, because we are at the moment at the same point of unpreparedness for any future events as we were in 1914, and in 1939. We Canadians have a habit to believe that all will be well, and that the military can be neglected once war is over. History contradicts this as the authors of this book show us clearly.

Today, we face a far graver danger than we thought we faced in 1939. Then war touched us very little on our own ground. Yes, the German navy of that time did manage to send its U-boats into our territorial waters and attempt some attacks on our shipping and on our territory right under our noses. But, these were minimal . . .

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