Death or Deliverance ─ Canadian Courts Martial in the Great War

This study of Canadian military justice during WWI delves into the trials of about 200 soldiers who were condemned to be executed but who were pardoned. While their stories go against popular conceptions of brutal and unforgiving military discipline during WWI, the central question addressed in the study is the question of why some Canadian deserters faced the firing squad while others had their sentences commuted for similar crimes. The study draws on personnel and court martial records, archival documents, war diaries, government memoranda, and personal accounts from letters, diaries, and memoirs. Iacobelli is a researcher in world wars and Canadian identity. The book is distributed in the US by the University of Washington Press, and in Canada by the University of Toronto Press. Annotation c2013 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Teresa Iacobelli received a doctorate in 2010 from the University of Western Ontario and is a SSHRC postdoctoral fellow. Her current research examines how the two world wars have been portrayed in popular media and how these depictions have shaped Canadian identity and social memories of war.