... Canada's Road to the Pacific War is a valuable contribution to the existing historiography. Wilford demonstrates clearly and effectively that Canada was a small but important link in the creation of the anti-Axis alliance prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor. With this examination of Canada's role in the Pacific, students of the Second World War and general readers alike can both form a better understanding of how the Allied nations cooperated to stem the tide of fascist aggression in 1941.

The speed with which the Dominion declared war, Timothy Wilford shows in this meticulously researched book, had more to do with Prime Minister Mackenzie King’s political calculus that to demonstrate Canadian sovereignty it was better to act before the rest of the British Commonwealth and the United States, than it did with Canadian pre-war preparedness. Yet Wilford has uncovered many traces of Canada’s (surprising) willingness to risk war to roll back Japanese advances in China.

This workmanlike book illuminates the information received in Ottawa about the deteriorating situation in the Pacific between 1939 and 1941 ...The documents discussed also show how the pressures of wartime cooperation were transforming not only the relationships between Canada and the United States but also those between Washington and London.

Canada’s Road to the Pacific War raises awareness of the motivations behind military planning and political decision-making during the final months before Canada’s war with Japan. Wilford presents his research with methodical organization, effective transitions and summaries, and rich documentation, to provide an insightful explanation of Canada’s evolving wartime relationship with Britain and the United States. He shows the extent to which racism coloured the judgment of military and government decision-makers, both in underestimating Japanese military capabilities and in overestimating the threat posed by Japanese-Canadians living in coastal British Columbia. Above all, Wilford gives us an intelligence-based understanding of the Mackenzie King government’s decisions to prepare for the internment of Japanese-Canadians, to support the trade embargo against Japan, to send Canadian soldiers to the ill-fated defence of Hong Kong, and to be the first Allied nation to declare war against Japan.