By the time of his retirement, Avery had published three academic books, over ninety articles/book reviews/government reports and participated in seven film documentary projects. Two of his books were on different aspects of Canadian immigration history, social inequality, and the movement for political/social change. Another study was The Science of War: Canadian Scientists and Allied Military Technology during the Second World War, which was runner-up for the 1999 John A. Macdonald Prize as the most outstanding book in Canadian history for that year.
In his retirement years Avery published The Meaning of Life: The Scientific and Social Experiences of Everitt and Robert Murray, 1930-64 (The Champlain Society of Canada, 2009), and Pathogens for War: Biological Weapons, Canadian Life Scientists, and North American Biodefence (University of Toronto Press, 2013). In 2025, he is releasing an environmental/social study — Protecting the Ontario Niagara Escarpment: Environmental Activism and Government Stewardship.
The current project has evolved during the past two decades. First, there was Avery’s long-standing interest in Canadian environmental history in terms of his teaching career and in presenting papers at meetings of international environmental history associations. Second, in 2009 he prepared a commissioned historical study refuting allegations that anthrax contamination occurred at defence research station Suffield (Alberta) during the Second World War. And finally, during the past decade he has studied the role of Ontario’s Niagara Escarpment Plan both in protecting the escarpment and in providing environmental expertise for the province’s naturalists. By 2025, he had completed a book-length manuscript that includes nine chapters on the Niagara Escarpment Plan as a unique large-scale conservation experiment in North America.
Another dimension of Avery’s research activity is associated with the activities of three environmental organizations — the Blue Mountain Watershed Trust, Gravel Watch Ontario, and Friends of the Pretty River Valley. In all three of these organizations there was a commitment to protect sensitive environments from inappropriate development, to challenge municipal governments for approving harmful aggregate pits and quarries, and to defend the goals of the Niagara Escarpment Commission. This experience enhanced his understanding of how earlier environmental groups — the Coalition on the Niagara Escarpment and the Federation of Ontario Naturalists — sought to enhance the performance of the Commission in carrying out the 1968 mandate of Premier John Robarts and land use planning professor Leonard Gertler (whom Robarts had commissioned to prepare the seminal Niagara Escarpment Study) in protecting the inspiring landscape and beautiful rivers of this 725-kilometre green corridor.
Pathogens for War: Biological Weapons, Canadian Life Scientists and North American Biodefence
2013, University of Toronto Press, 409 pages
Amazon.ca: https://a.co/d/iozTnCq
Pathogens for War explores how Canada and its allies have attempted to deal with the threat of germ warfare, one of the most fearful weapons of mass destruction, since the Second World War. In addressing this subject, distinguished historian Donald Avery investigates the relationship between bioweapons, poison gas, and nuclear devices, as well as the connection between bioattacks and natural disease pandemics. Avery emphasizes the crucially important activities of Canadian biodefence scientists – beginning with Nobel Laureate Frederick Banting – at both the national level and through cooperative projects within the framework of an elaborate alliance system.
Pathogens for War also devotes several chapters to the contemporary challenges of bioterrorism and disease pandemics from both national and international perspectives. As such, readers will not only learn about Canada’s secret involvement with biological warfare but will also gain new insights about contemporary challenges of pandemic outbreaks.
The Science of War: Canadian Scientists and Allied Military Technology During the Second World War
1998, University of Toronto Press, 406 pages
Amazon.ca: https://a.co/d/fjiE73P
The Second World War, with its emphasis on innovative weapons and defence technology, brought about massive changes in the role of scientists in Canada, the United States, and Great Britain. Canadian scientists, working through the auspices of the National Research Council and the Department of National Defence, made important contributions to the development of alliance warfare. Before 1939, Canada had only a minute military establishment and a limited industrial and academic capacity for research and development. With the outbreak of war, all this changed dramatically. This book explains how and why Canada was able to play in the big leagues of military technology, including the development of radar, RDX explosives, proximity fuses, chemical and biological warfare, and the atomic bomb.
The Science of War was a runner-up for the 1999 John A. Macdonald Prize as the best book in Canadian History.
The Meaning of Life: The Scientific and Social Experiences of Everitt and Robert Murray, 1930-1964
2008, The Champlain Society, 807 pages
by Donald H. Avery; Mark Eaton (editors)
Amazon.ca: https://a.co/d/14U5Tfi
The Meaning of Life documents the careers of two remarkable microbiologists who were involved in the new frontier of scientific discovery—Everitt George Dunne Murray (1890-1964) and his son Robert George Everitt Murray (1919-2022). Their collective experiences cover more than eighty years of Canadian microbiology and immunology research. In the case of the senior Murray, with his laboratory team at McGill University, he was one of the more accomplished microbe hunters of the early twentieth century. In contrast, while Robert shared his father’s interest in clinical bacteriology, during the 1950’s he gravitated towards fundamental scientific research with his bacteriophage and bacterial cytology studies that eventually established a reasonably rapid procedure for both RNA and DNA genome sequencing.
The Murrays also shared a lifelong interest in studying bacteria within an effective international classification system through Bergey’s Manual and the work of the International Association of Microbiological Societies. They were also involved in the operation of a number of important North American scientific organizations—the Canadian Society of Microbiologists (which they founded) and the Society of American Bacteriologists, with Robert being elected president of the SAB in 1973, while also editing its journal during the momentous years 1969 to 1979 when the international community rejected the use of biological weapons.
Reluctant Host
1995, McClelland and Stewart, 272 pages
Amazon.ca: https://a.co/d/1QQGgBN
Reluctant Host is a history of the evolution of Canadian immigration policy in the 20th century with three major threads. First is an analysis of how pressure groups – business, labour, ethnic, political, bureaucratic – determined Canada’s policies. While there is some reference to professional and skilled migrants, the emphasis is appropriately on the unskilled and the massive numbers demanded by spokesmen for the labour-intensive industries – extractive, transportation, construction, companies – and their political allies. These determined the scale and composition of immigration. A second thread is a study of immigrant workers, their experiences as shaped by racial and ethnic considerations. Third is a study of official policy. Class, race, and ethnicity determined both Canada’s policy toward different groups of immigrant workers, and where foreign-born men and women found employment.