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History Post-confederation (1867-)

Riding to the Rescue

The Transformation of the RCMP in Alberta and Saskatchewan, 1914-1939

by (author) Steve Hewitt

Publisher
University of Toronto Press
Initial publish date
Dec 2006
Category
Post-Confederation (1867-), Federal, Social History
  • Hardback

    ISBN
    9780802090218
    Publish Date
    Dec 2006
    List Price
    $102.00
  • Paperback / softback

    ISBN
    9780802048950
    Publish Date
    Nov 2006
    List Price
    $49.95
  • eBook

    ISBN
    9781442658516
    Publish Date
    Dec 2006
    List Price
    $37.95

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Description

The Mountie may be one of Canada's best-known national symbols, yet much of the post-nineteenth century history of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police remains unexamined, particularly the period between 1914 and 1939, when the RCMP underwent enormous transformation. The nature of this transformation as it took place in Alberta and Saskatchewan – where the Mounties have traditionally dominated policing – is the focus of Steve Hewitt's Riding to the Rescue.

During the 1914-to-1939 period, the nineteenth-century model of the RCMP was evolving into a twentieth-century version, and the institution that emerged responded to a nation that was being transformed as well. Forces such as industrialization, mass immigration, urbanization, and political radicalism compelled the Mounties to look away from the frontier and toward a new era.

Incorporating previously classified material, which explores the RCMP both in the context of its ordinary policing role and in its work as Canada's domestic spy agency, Hewitt demonstrates how much of the impetus behind the RCMP's transformation was ensuring its own survival and continued relevance. Riding to the Rescue is a provocative and incisive look behind one of Canada's most enduring icons at the cusp of the modern era.

About the author

STEVE HEWITT was born and raised in Southern Ontario. He is the author of Spying 101: The RCMP's Secret Activities at Canadian Universities, 1917-1997 and is a member of the Department of American and Canadian Studies at the University of Birmingham in the United Kingdom.

Steve Hewitt's profile page