Afghanistan: A Glimpse of War—Contemporary History at the Canadian War Museum

Authors

Andrew Burtch, Canadian War MuseumFollow

Abstract

How do you exhibit the history of an ongoing conflict, with an unknown outcome and with most documents restricted on the basis of operational security? What story can you tell? Afghanistan: A Glimpse of War, a special exhibition developed by and currently on view at the Canadian War Museum (CWM), addresses these questions by using first-hand accounts from eyewitness records, media reports, interviews, open source material, and the visitors themselves. The exhibition presents the origins of the war in Afghanistan, and Canadian participation from the first deployments in 2002 to current operations in Kandahar province. The personal stories in the exhibition examine how individual Canadian soldiers and Afghans experienced conflict and reconstruction in Afghanistan, and were made available to the CWM primarily through the work of two Canadian journalists, Stephen Thorne and Garth Pritchard.

Recommended Citation

Burtch, Andrew "Afghanistan: A Glimpse of War—Contemporary History at the Canadian War Museum." Canadian Military History 16, 3 (2007)