Worth Fighting For: Canada’s Tradition of War Resistance from 1812 to the War on Terror

edited by Lara Campbell, Michael Dawson, and Catherine Gidney Between the Lines, 321 pages, $34.95 Does Canada really have its own tradition of war resistance? Are such activities a significant part of our national narrative or merely an occasional side story? Worth Fighting For, a collection of essays published by Toronto’s Between the Lines progressive press, offers an alternative to the military buffs who have dominated the interpretation of history in recent years. The book’s contributors argue that war resistance should be understood to include all forms of opposition to state-sanctioned military violence and militarist culture.

Conscientious objection by faith-based individuals was an early part of Canadian pacifism. Opposition to war might also have overtly political motivations,