Riding to the Rescue: The Transformation of the RCMP in Alberta and Saskatchewan, 1914-1939 (Canadian Social History Series) - Softcover

Hewitt, Steve

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0802048951 ISBN 13: 9780802048950

Publisher: University of Toronto Press, 2006

Synopsis

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 this title

About the Author

Steve Hewitt is a lecturer in the Department of American and Canadian Studies at the University of Birmingham.

Edition details

• Publisher: University of Toronto Press
• Publication date: 2006
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0802048951
• ISBN 13: 9780802048950
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 240