<p>The Ku Klux Klan had its origins in the American South in the<br>post-Civil War period. It was suppressed but rose again in the 1920s<br>when it enjoyed widespread support throughout the United States and<br>spread into Canada, especially Saskatchewan, where it took root and<br>flourished. There it won widespread support and helped bring down the<br>Liberal government and elect the Conservative party in the 1929<br>provincial election.</p><br><br><p>James Pitsula offers a new interpretation for the appeal of the Ku<br>Klux Klan in 1920s Saskatchewan. He argues that the Klan should not be<br>portrayed merely as an irrational outburst of intolerance and hatred<br>but rather as a populist aftershock of the First World War. Fearing<br>that the hard-won victory to keep Canada British was being undone by<br>massive immigration from Central and Eastern Europe, many<br>Saskatchewanians sought to reverse the trend. The Klan represented a<br>slightly more extreme version of mainstream opinion and, although a<br>racist organization, it eschewed violence, followed constitutional<br>methods, and eventually rejected robes and hoods.</p><br><br><p><i>Keeping Canada British</i> tackles a controversial issue<br>central to the history of Saskatchewan and the formation of national<br>identity. In seeking to understand the 1920s Ku Klux Klan in all of its<br>strange complexity, this book shines light upon a dark corner of<br>Canada's past.</p><p><b>James M. Pitsula</b> is a professor of history at the<br>University of Regina.