“In the end, our nation’s military has always shown courage, tenacity, and daring.” Such is the thesis of Fortune Favours the Brave, edited by Colonel Bernd Horn, historian and deputy commander of Canada’s Special Operations Forces Command. To prove his point, Horn has enlisted eight writers to contribute 12 histories of battles involving Canadians (or proto-Canadians) from 1758 to 2007.

It is worth noting the pedigree of the authors. Eight are serving with, have served with, or are employed by the Department of National Defence (DND). In that light, a reader must consider that the contributors bring a bias to their work, perhaps explaining the repeated tales of victory, which smacks of jingoism.

All but two chapters have been written without directly addressing Horn’s thesis. Specific references to courage and tenacity are more often oblique, leaving readers to infer the proof for themselves. Although this is not an onerous task – what battle narrative lacks examples of courage and tenacity? – it does put the onus on the reader. The result is that the chapters do not cohere under Horn’s umbrella thesis, but rather fall under the more general rubric of “Canadian military history.”

While this arguably undermines Horn’s overall intent, the individual essays will be of interest to military history readers. Some of the battles covered will be new to even the most dedicated generalist, including the British landing at Louisbourg (1758), Cold War submarine patrolling (1980s), and the Medak Pocket (1993). The absence of good maps for the majority of the histories is unfortunate, though.

The quality of writing ranges from awkward to sublime. The most egregious prose appears in Horn’s own essay, “Wood Creek, 8 August, 1758,” the first sentence of which is “Tha-boom!” At the other extreme is writer and DND historian Sean Maloney’s excellent “The Battle of Arghandab, 30 October–1 November, 2007.” Indeed, both chapters on Afghanistan (interestingly, Horn provides the other) are the best company-level battle narratives currently available, and by themselves are worth the price of the book.