Give me shelter : the failure of Canada's Cold War civil defence / Andrew Burtch.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Burtch, Andrew Paul, 1978-

Series:

Studies in Canadian military history

Studies in Canadian military history, 1499-6251

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Canada. Civil Defence.

Canada.

Civil defense--Canada--Planning--History--20th century.

Civil defense.

Cold War.

Military policy.

History.

Planning.

Canada--Military policy--History--20th century.

Physical Description:

xiii, 277 pages : illustrations, portraits ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

Vancouver : UBC Press, [2012]

Summary:

The historian for the post-1945 period at the Canadian War Museum, Burtch describes the program to protect Canadian civilians against nuclear attack during the 1950s, and the overwhelming rejection of the effort by the citizens. There were three stages of civil defense policy, he says. The first, from 1948 to 1954, identified targeted cities and expected them to protect themselves with central government aid--a policy based on British and German approaches during World War II. When officials realized that an atomic bomb was not just a bigger bomb, the strategy turned to evacuating target cities. That lasted until 1959, when a policy involving early warning and fallout shelters was adopted. By 1962, it was all evaporating. He attributes the failure to the nature of the relationship between the state and its citizenry, the government's inadequate plans, and the balance of civil-military relations. Distributed in the US by the University of Washington Press, and in Canada by the University of Toronto Press. Annotation ©2012 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Contents:

1 From World War to Cold War, 1945-50 15

2 The Korean War and the Trouble with Civil Defence, 1950-53 37

3 Publicizing Armageddon: Responsible Citizenship and Civil Defence, 1948-54 58

4 Evacuation and Celebration, 1954-56 77

5 Emergency Measures, 1957-59 110

6 The Survival Army, 1959-62 130

7 The Path to a Shelter Program, 1949-59 156

8 Irresponsible Citizens, 1959-62 174

9 Cuba, Confusion, and Retreat, 1962-68 205.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780774822404

0774822406

OCLC:

759669178