The First World War occupies a complicated space in our public memory. For many Canadians, places like Vimy Ridge or Passchendaele are certainly familiar, Remembrance Day is generally well attended, issues like shell shock are broadly understood, and the traumatic events of the conscription crisis are often taught, though in very different ways whether one is French-Canadian or not. Yet, in the last two decades more and more scholarship has appeared which has added nuance and complexity to narratives that have traditionally been presented or taught or even understood in far more simplistic and inaccurate ways. Gregory Kennedy has contributed to this burgeoning field by examining the story of Acadians in the First World War. The Acadians are a minority French community in the Maritimes and yet their experience highlights the much more nuanced realities of the broader Canadian experience during that nation-defining conflict. While much of the country railed against the perceived lack of participation of French Canadians, Kennedy’s work shows that the Acadians did indeed enlist at very similar rates as to Anglophone Maritimers. The contributions of Acadians formalized into the raising of the 165th battalion, an all-Acadian regiment. Yet, even the story of the 165th sheds light on the varying experiences of Canadian soldiers in the Canadian Expeditionary Force.
Gregory Kennedy is Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Professor of History at Brandon University. He was previously Professor of History at the Université de Moncton, and from 2015 through 2023 was the Research Director of the Institut d'études acadiennes. He has two monographs, Lost in the Crowd: Acadian Soldiers of Canada's First World War and Something of a Peasant Paradise? Comparing Rural Societies in Acadie and the Loudunais, 1604-1755, both with McGill-Queen's University Press. Kennedy is the lead researcher of the SSHRC-funded Partnership Development project Military Service, Citizenship, and Political Culture in Atlantic Canada. He is also the co-editor of a forthcoming interdisciplinary collection of essays called Repenser l'Acadie dans le monde, and a co-researcher of the SSHRC-funded Partnership project Trois siècles de migrations francophones en Amérique du Nord.
Today’s book recommendation is by Gregory Kennedy titled Lost in the Crowd: Acadian Soldiers of Canada’s First World War, published by McGill Queen’s Press in 2024.
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S8E2 The Frontier Constabulary - Canada’s First Secret Police
S8E1 Kurt Meyer - A War Criminal in Canada
S7E21 - The Dakota War and British North America
S7E20 The Avro Arrow Part 2
S7E19 The Avro Arrow Part 1
S7E18 To Pass or Not to Pass - The Emergence (and Divergence) of North American Football
S7E17 A Thankless Task - Policing in New France
S7E16 The 1979 Binational Lesbian Conference
S7E15 Rise Republic Rise: The United Irish Uprising in Newfoundland
S7E14 The Guess Who
Announcement - Name Change!
S7E13 Gravenhurst: The Gateway City
S7E12 Nic Power - The Bad Detective
S7E11 To the Winner Goes the Spoils: The Origins of Lord Stanley's Cup
S7E10 More than Just Beads and Bannock: First Nations Women and the Fur Trade
S7E9 Viola Desmond: The Woman on the 10 Dollar Bill
S7E8 Ring the Alarm – The Japanese Attack on Canada’s West Coast
S7E7 – Gahoendoe and the loss of Wendake
S7E6 – Forgotten Battle: The Battle for the Scheldt – a conversation with Mark Zuehlke
S7E5 – The Forgotten Fourth Arm – The Merchant Navy’s Fight for Recognition
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