Tim Cook (historian)

Tim Cook CM (born 1971 in Kingston, Ontario) is a Canadian military historian and author.^[1] Cook is an historian at the Canadian War Museum^{[2] [1]} and the author of several books about the military history of Canada during World War I.^[2] Having written extensively about World War I, Cook's focus shifted to Canada's involvement in World War II with the 2014 publication of the first volume in a two-volume series chronicling Canada's role in that war.^[3]

Background

Cook was born in Kingston, Ontario, and raised in Ottawa. He studied history at Trent University in Peterborough, and later obtained a master's degree at the Royal Military College of Canada and a doctorate at the University of New South Wales.^[4]

Awards

His 2000 book, No Place to Run, was awarded the Charles Stacey award for best book in Canadian military history. At the Sharp End: Canadians Fighting the Great War, 1914-1916, won the 2007 J.W. Dafoe award for literary non-fiction and the 2008 Ottawa Book award. His 2008 book Shock Troops: Canadians Fighting the Great War 1917–1918 won the 2009 Charles Taylor Prize.^[1] The Madman and the Butcher: The Sensational Wars of Sam Hughes and General Arthur Currie was a finalist for the 2011 Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for Political Writing, the 2011 J.W. Dafoe prize, and the 2011 Ottawa Book Award. His 2012 book Warlords: Borden, Mackenzie King, and Canada's World Wars was a finalist for the 2013 Charles A. Taylor award for Literary Non-Fiction and the Canadian Authors Association Literary Award.^[5]

The Necessary War received the 2015 C.P. Stacey award for best book in Canadian Military History and Fight to the Finish received the 2016 Ottawa Book Award. In 2017, Cook published Vimy: Battle and Legend.

Cook was the recipient of the 2013 Pierre Berton Award (Governor General's History Award for Popular Media), which is awarded by Canada's National History Society. The award was given to Cook for his work making military history "more accessible, vivid and factual", both in his role as an author and as the First World War Historian at the Canadian War Museum.^[6]

Tim Cook was appointed a member of the Order of Canada on December 26, 2014.^[7]

Published works

Books

• No Place to Run: The Canadian Corps and Gas Warfare in the First World War. UBC Press. 1999. ISBN 978-0-7748-4180-1. 

(Winner of the 2000 C.P. Stacey award for most distinguished book in Canadian military history)^[8]

• Clio's Warriors: Canadian Historians and the Writing of the World Wars. UBC Press. 2006. ISBN 978-0-7748-4125-2. 
• At the Sharp End: Canadians Fighting the Great War, 1914 - 1916. Viking Canada. 2007. ISBN 978-0-670-06734-3. 

(Winner of the 2007 J.W. Dafoe award for literary non-fiction and of the 2008 Ottawa Book award)^[8]

• Shock Troops: Canadians Fighting the Great War, 1917-1918. Viking Canada. 2008. ISBN 978-0-670-06735-0. 

(Winner of the 2009 Charles Taylor Prize for Literary Non-Fiction)

• The Madman and the Butcher: The Sensational Wars Of Sam Hughes And General Arthur Currie. Penguin Canada. 2010. ISBN 978-0-14-317883-5. 
• Warlords: Borden Mackenzie King And Canada's World Wars. Penguin Canada. 2012. ISBN 978-0-14-318667-0. 
• The Necessary War. Penguin Canada. 2014. ISBN 978-0-14-319304-3. 
• Fight to the Finish: Canadians in the Second World War, 1944-1945. Penguin Canada. 2015. ISBN 978-0-14-319612-9. 
• Vimy: Battle and Legend. Toronto: Penguin Canada, 2017.

Monographs

• Tim Cook, We Were Freedom: Canadian Stories of the Second World War (Key Porter Books, 2010).
• WWI: The War That Shaped a Nation. The Legion, 2011.

Academic articles

• "The Blind Leading the Blind: The St. Eloi Battle of the Craters," Canadian Military History 4 (Fall 1996) 24-36.
• “Creating Faith: The Canadian Gas Services in the First World War,” Journal of Military History 62, (October 1998) 755-86.
• “Through Clouded Eyes: Gas Masks in the First World War,” Bulletin of Material History 47 (Spring 1998) 4-20.
• “A Proper Slaughter: The March 1917 Gas Raid,” Canadian Military History 8.2 (Spring 1999) 7-23.
• “More as a medicine than a beverage”: ‘Demon Rum’ and the Canadian Trench Soldier in the First World War, Canadian Military History 9.1 (Winter 2000) 7-22.
• “Against God-Inspired Conscience: Perceptions of Gas Warfare as a Weapon of Mass Destruction, 1915-1939,” War & Society 18.1 (May 2000) 47-69.
• “Clio’s Soldiers: Charles Stacey and the Army Historical Officers in the Second World War,” The Canadian Historical Review 83.1 (March 2002) 29-57.
• “From Destruction to Construction: The Khaki University of Canada, 1917-1919,” Journal of Canadian Studies 37.1 (Spring 2002) 109-143.
• “Archives and Privacy in a Wired World: The Impact of the Personal Information Act (Bill C-6) on Archives,” Archivaria 53 (Spring 2002) 94-115.
• “Dying like so many rats in a trap”: Gas warfare and the Great War soldier," The Army Doctrine and Training Bulletin, 5.4 (Winter 2002-2003) 47-56.
• Documenting War & Forging Reputations: Sir Max Aitken and the Canadian War Records Office in the First World War, War In History 10 (3), 2003, 265-295.
• Literary Memorials: The Great War Regimental Histories, 1919-1939, Journal of the Canadian Historical Association (Toronto 2002) 167-190.
• Wet Canteens and Worrying Mothers: Soldiers and Temperance Groups in the Great War, Social History 35.70 (June 2003) 311-330.
• The Butcher and the Madman: Sir Arthur Currie, Sir Sam Hughes and the War of Reputations, The Canadian Historical Review 85.4 (December 2004) 693-719.
• Canada’s Great War on Film: Lest We Forget (1935) Canadian Military History 14.3 (Summer 2005) 5-20.
• “Quill and Canon: Writing the Great War in Canada,” The American Review of Canadian Studies (Autumn 2005) 503-530.
• “’My Whole Heart and Soul is in this War’: The Letters and War Service of Sergeant G.L. Ormsby,” Canadian Military History 15.1 (Winter 2006) 51-63.
• The Politics of Surrender: Canadian soldiers and the Killing of Prisoners in the Great War, Journal of Military History 70.3 (July 2006) 637-665.

Winner of the 2006 Moncado Award.

• [with Natascha Morrison] “Longing and Loss from Canada’s Great War,” Canadian Military History 16.1 (Winter 2007) 53-60.
• “Anti-heroes of the Canadian Expeditionary Force,” Journal of the Canadian Historical Association 19.1 (2008) 171-193.
• ‘He was determined to go:’ Underage Soldiers in the Canadian Expeditionary Force, Histoire sociale - Social History 41.81 (May 2008) 41-74.
• [with Eric Brown], “The Hendershot Brothers in the Great War,” Canadian Military History 18.2 (Spring 2009) 41-56.
• “The Singing War: Soldiers’ Songs in the Great War,” American Review of Canadian Studies 39.3 (September 2009) 224-241.
• “The Ten Most Important Books of Canadian Military History,” Canadian Military History, 18.4 (Autumn 2009) 65-74.
• [with Christopher Schultz] New Theatres of War: An Analysis of Paul Gross’s Passchendaele, Canadian Military History, 19.3 (Summer 2010) 51-56.
• “The Ten Most Important War Films,” Canadian Military History, Volume 19, Number 3, (Summer 2010) 73-79.
• [with Eric Brown] “The 1936 Vimy Pilgrimage,” Canadian Military History 20.2 (Spring 2011) 37-54.
• “‘Our first duty is to win, at any cost’: Sir Robert Borden during the Great War,” Journal of Military and Strategic Studies 13.3 (Spring 2011) 1-24.
• “‘Tokens of Fritz’: Canadian Soldiers and the Art of Souveneering in the Great War,” War & Society 31.3 (October 2012) 211-226.
• “Fighting Words: Canadian Soldiers’ Slang and Swearing in the Great War,” accepted and awaiting publication in War in History 20.3 (July 2013) 323–344.
• “Grave Beliefs: Stories of the Supernatural and the Uncanny among Canada’s Great War Trench Soldiers,” The Journal of Military History 77/2 (2013) 521-542.
• “’I will meet the world with a smile and a joke’: Canadian Soldiers’ Humour in the Great War,” Canadian Military History 22.2 (Spring 2013).
• “Canada and the Great War,” RUSI Journal 159.4 (August-September 2014) 56-64.
• “Battles of the Imagined Past: Canada’s Great War and Memory,” The Canadian Historical Review 95.3 (2014) 414-423.

References