Canada emerged from the Second World War as a hydro-electric superpower. Only the United States generated more hydro power than Canada and only Norway generated more per capita. Allied Power is about how this came to be: the mobilization of Canadian hydro-electricity during the war and the impact of that wartime expansion on Canada’s power systems, rivers, and politics.

Matthew Evenden argues that the wartime power crisis facilitated an unprecedented expansion of state control over hydro-electric development, boosting the country’s generating capacity and making an important material contribution to the Allied war effort at the same time as it exacerbated regional disparities, transformed rivers through dam construction, and changed public attitudes to electricity though power conservation programs.

An important contribution to the political, environmental, and economic history of wartime Canada, Allied Power is an innovative examination of a little-known aspect of Canada’s Second World War experience.

Matthew Evenden is a professor in the Department of Geography as well as the Associate Dean of Research and Graduate Studies at the University of British Columbia.

Matthew Evenden's profile page

‘Allied Power should prove to be a very important contribution of lasting value to the scholarly community and the general reader alike.’

Canadian Military History vol 27:01:2018

‘This book will appeal to specialists in war on the home front as well as those interested in environmental history and business history, especially aluminum production.’

Canadian Historical Review vol 98:02:2017

‘Allied Power adds an important dimension to our understanding about how WWII catalyzed the power of federal state in Canada while enabling and shaping the nature of postwar economic expansion on which so much of Canada’s recent history turns.’

Canadian Journal of History - vol 53:01:2018

‘Evenden tells a truly remarkable tale... It presents in a coherent and well-organized manner a crucial chapter in the story of how Canada achieved a remarkable level of industrial productivity during and after the war.’

Canadian Business History Association – The Prospectus, November 2017

‘Eminently readable, engaging, and well supported with ample maps and images, this book will be useful not only for scholars of the Canadian home front and wartime mobilization, but also for those looking at other countries in the context of resource development during the Second World War.’

H-Environment, September 2015