The United States needed a road to Alaska so they could defend the Aleutians from Japan. They sent soldiers to build the Alaska Highway. The segregated Black 97th Engineers built the road in Alaska, and when their disorganized white officers struggled to make progress, the army replaced their commander. The new one got the job done but ignored military protocol and discipline, so the army, worried about undisciplined black soldiers, replaced him too. And to put the fear of God into the soldiers, the army trumped up a mutiny charge against ten of them and sentenced them to long prison terms at hard labor.

The United States needed a road to Alaska so they could defend the Aleutians from Japan. They sent soldiers to build the Alaska Highway. The segregated Black 97th Engineers built the road in Alaska, and when their disorganized white officers struggled to make progress, the army replaced their commander. The new one got the job done but ignored military protocol and discipline, so the army, worried about undisciplined black soldiers, replaced him too. And to put the fear of God into the soldiers, the army trumped up a mutiny charge against ten of them and sentenced them to long prison terms at hard labor.

We Fought the Road is the story of the building of the Alaska-Canada Highway during World War II. More than one third of the 10,607 builders were black; thought to be incapable of performing on a war front by many of their white commanding officers. Their task--which required punching through wilderness on a route blocked by the Rocky Mountains and deadly permafrost during the worst winter on record--has been likened to the building of the Panama Canal. Unlike most accounts that focus on the road's military planners, We Fought the Road is boots-on-the-ground and often personal, based in part on letters from the "Three Cent Romance," the successful courtship via mail discovered in the authors' family papers

Article abstracts and citations of reviews and dissertations covering the United States and Canada.

Historically Canadians have considered themselves to be more or less free of racial prejudice. Although this conception has been challenged in recent years, it has not been completely dispelled. In Colour-Coded, Constance Backhouse illustrates the tenacious hold that white supremacy had on our legal system in the first half of this century, and underscores the damaging legacy of inequality that continues today. Backhouse presents detailed narratives of six court cases, each giving evidence of blatant racism created and enforced through law. The cases focus on Aboriginal, Inuit, Chinese-Canadian, and African-Canadian individuals, taking us from the criminal prosecution of traditional Aboriginal dance to the trial of members of the 'Ku Klux Klan of Kanada.' From thousands of possibilities, Backhouse has selected studies that constitute central moments in the legal history of race in Canada. Her selection also considers a wide range of legal forums, including administrative rulings by municipal councils, criminal trials before police magistrates, and criminal and civil cases heard by the highest courts in the provinces and by the Supreme Court of Canada. The extensive and detailed documentation presented here leaves no doubt that the Canadian legal system played a dominant role in creating and preserving racial discrimination. A central message of this book is that racism is deeply embedded in Canadian history despite Canada's reputation as a raceless society. Winner of the Joseph Brant Award, presented by the Ontario Historical Society

From the Publisher: This latest edition of an official U.S. Government military history classic provides an authoritative historical survey of the organization and accomplishments of the United States Army. This scholarly yet readable book is designed to inculcate an awareness of our nation's military past and to demonstrate that the study of military history is an essential ingredient in leadership development. It is also an essential addition to any personal military history library.

In Killing Hope, William Blum, author of the bestselling Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only Superpower, provides a devastating and comprehensive account of America's covert and overt military actions in the world, all the way from China in the 1940s to the invasion of Iraq in 2003 and - in this updated edition - beyond. Is the United States, as it likes to claim, a global force for democracy? Killing Hope shows the answer to this question to be a resounding 'no'.

A transnational history of how Indigenous peoples mobilised en masse to support the war effort on the battlefields and the home fronts.