"Brookfield's very good book sheds a great deal of new light on Canadian women and the Cold War. The book's second section, 'Abroad,' is fascinating, and is the truly novel part of this study. Here we see Canadian women's involvement in various campaigns involving children in other parts of the world: donations to, and fundraising for, United Nations-led efforts to improve the health and safety of children, such as UNICEF; fostering children in (non-Communist) countries such as North Korea, Hong Kong, and Greece; aid, in money and in kind, to children who had suffered the fall-out of the war in Vietnam; and the thorny and controversial question of international adoption, notably as it played out in Vietnam and Cambodia. The author's analysis is perceptive and nuanced: she examines these complex issues from different angles, pointing out the problematic nature of the politics involved in some of these causes while at the same time drawing a sympathetic portrait of the Canadian women who believed so strongly in them. Brookfield is able to draw on existing works on some of these topics, notably the excellent and thought-provoking studies of adoption by Dubinsky and by Strong-Boag, but in most of the second part of her book she is breaking new historiographical ground. Where possible, the author attempts to ascertain the thoughts and sentiments of those on the receiving end of Canadian aid: for example, she shares with her readers some heartbreaking and perplexing extracts from letters written by South Korean children to their Canadian foster-parents and underlines the complex nature and unclear meanings of this fostering. In general, Brookfield makes excellent use of the records of voluntary associations and non-governmental organizations, as well as of governmental records such as those created by the Departments of External Affairs, Defence, and Health and Welfare, unearthing correspondence and other documents that testify to the persistent lobbying undertaken by some Canadian women. She also makes good use of oral histories, including some fifteen interviews that she herself conducted.

The analysis found in Cold War Comforts is important and original, and this study will undoubtedly interest scholars of social movements, of women's activism, and of twentieth-century Canada more broadly.".