Greg M.W. Kennedy’s Lost in the Crowd: Acadian Soldiers of Canada’s First World War recently won the New Brunswick scholarly book prize.
Published in February 2024 by McGill-Queen’s University Press, the book will especially interest those with Acadian ancestry and anyone who enjoys learning about military history.
In the award citation, the editorial board of the Journal of New Brunswick Studies/Revue d’études sur le Nouveau-Brunswick, said, “Using attestation papers, service records, and census data, in addition to a host of other sources, from local newspapers to personal correspondence, Kennedy paints a compelling and complex portrait of the men who served and the communities that supported them.
“Lost in the Crowd mixes quantitative, qualitative, and bottom-up approaches, making it social history at its best.”
In December 1915, as the First World War wore on, Acadian leaders meeting in New Brunswick deplored how soldiers from their communities were “lost in the crowd” of the Canadian Expeditionary Force. They successfully lobbied the federal government for the creation of an Acadian national unit that would be French-speaking, Catholic, and led by their own. More than a thousand Acadians from across the Maritime provinces, Quebec, and the American northeast answered the call. — Excerpt from the publisher’s overview.
Mr. Kennedy shows that Acadians were just as likely to enlist as their English-speaking counterparts across the Maritimes, though the backgrounds of the volunteers were quite different. With the help of the 1921 Canadian Census, he explores the factors that influenced post-war outcomes, both positive and negative, for soldiers, families, and communities.
A preview of the contents of the book is available on Amazon.ca.
