A Township at War [Hardcover]

A Township at War is the story of one community, the southern Ontario township of East Flamborough, during the First World War. It takes the reader from rural Canadian field and farm to the slopes of Vimy Ridge and the mud of Passchendaele, and shows how a tightlyknit community was consumed and transformed by the trauma of war.In 1914, East Flamborough was like a thousand other rural townships in Canada, broadly representative in its wartime experience. A Township at War draws from rich narrative sources to reveal what rural people were like a century ago  how they saw the world, what they valued, and how they lived their lives. We see them coming to terms with global events that took their loved ones to distant battlefields, and dealing with the prosaic challenges of everyday life. Fall fairs, recruiting meetings, church services, school concerts  all are re-imagined to understand how rural Canadians coped with war, modernism, and a world that was changing more quickly than they were.This is a story of resilience and idealism, of violence and small-mindedness, of a world that has long disappeared and one that remains with us to this day.A Township at War recreates one corner of rural Canada, the southern Ontario township of East Flamborough, during the First World War. Drawing from rich narrative sources, this work uses the local to understand the national, revealing what rural people were like a century ago  how they saw the world, what they valued, and how they lived their lives. written for a general audience with a strong narrative to be released in conjunction with the 100th anniversary of the end of the First World War most books written about the war have been from an urban perspective. Rural Canada was very different and this book tells those stories. although its about a specific township in southern Ontario the story is relatable to other rural areas of Canada