One hundred years ago saw the declaration of a war that would forever change our understanding of war. With a staggering loss of life, World War One was, by all accounts, a brutal and devastating tragedy. And yet, on the eve of the hundredth anniversary, countries around the world are preparing to commemorate the Great War not with sadness and regret but with nationalist pride. Conservative forces, already well into a program to elevate the place of the military in society, are embracing the opportunity to replace today\u2019s apparent cynicism with an unquestioning patriotism similar to that which existed a century ago. Politicians on both sides of the Atlantic are imploring their citizens \u2014 especially their youth \u2014 to revive the sense of duty embodied in the generation that served in the trenches. But is the ennobling nature of patriotism the real lesson that people today should extract from that now-vanished generation\u2019s experience? Through a dialogue with a pop-culture artifact from a lost world \u2014 a boys\u2019 annual called Young Canada \u2014 Noble Illusions examines the use of propaganda to glorify racist colonial wars and, in the wake of those, the Great War. A juxtaposition of earnest instruction on the cultivation of everyday virtues and brutal tales of war masquerading as moral lessons on valour and righteousness, Young Canada helped to persuade a generation of young Canadians to head eagerly to the battlefields of World War One. Concerned that the rise of militarism is leading today\u2019s youth in a similar direction, Stephen Dale offers this examination as an inoculation against the blind patriotism politicians are working so hard to instill.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
One hundred years ago saw the declaration of a war that would forever change our understanding of war. With a staggering loss of life, World War One was, by all […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":42360,"template":"","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":""},"product_brand":[],"product_cat":[16001],"product_tag":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-64939","1":"product","2":"type-product","3":"status-publish","4":"has-post-thumbnail","5":"product_language-eng-fr","6":"product_subjects-history-fr","7":"product_subjects-canada-fr","8":"product_subjects-post-confederation-1867-fr","9":"biblio_share_tag-history-military-world-war-i-fr","10":"product_cat-remembrance-day-fr","11":"entry","13":"first","14":"instock","15":"taxable","16":"shipping-taxable","17":"purchasable","18":"product-type-simple"},"yoast_head":"\n