Many believed the twentieth century would be the century of the child: an era in which modern societies would value and protect children, sheltering them from violence and poverty. Yet this hopeful vision was marred by the harsh realities of migration, displacement, and armed conflict.

Small Stories of War grapples with the meanings and memories of childhood and wartime by asking new questions about lived experience. Spanning the First World War to the early twenty-first century and featuring chapters about Canada, Australia, Germany, the former Yugoslavia, Rwanda, and northern Uganda, this volume asks how young people encountered and responded to armed conflict. How did children, youth, and their families make sense of war in the violent twentieth century? How have they shared their stories and experiences of violence and trauma? Analyzing a broad range of sources including family letters, oral history, and children’s artwork, contributors offer important insights into the production of historical knowledge with and about young people.

Engaging with cutting-edge debates about emotions, temporality, space, and young people as political actors, Small Stories of War offers compelling new research and an interpretive toolkit that will benefit scholars from across the social sciences and humanities.

Barbara Lorenzkowski teaches history at Concordia University. She is the author of several articles and book chapters on the cultural history of post-Confederation Canada. Sounds of Ethnicity is her first book.

Barbara Lorenzkowski's profile page

Kristine Alexander is Canada Research Chair in Child and Youth Studies and associate professor of history at the University of Lethbridge.

Kristine Alexander's profile page

Andrew Burtch is the Post-1945 Historian at the Canadian War Museum, and an adjunct research professor in Carleton University’s history department.

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“A critical historiographical overview that makes for essential reading.” Canadian Military History

“In this innovative study the authors use oral history, material culture, letters, and art to centre children’s voices and experiences. Each chapter is well researched and sensitive to difficult subject matter. Collectively they make important contributions to the history of children and youth, war and society, memory and oral history, and the history of emotion and affect theory.” Nancy Janovicek, University of Calgary