Tim Cook CM (born 1971) is a Canadian military historian and author.[1] Cook is an historian at the Canadian War Museum[2][1] and the author of thirteen books about the military history of Canada.[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] He is a two-time recipient (2000 and 2015) of the C.P. Stacey Prize, a two-time recipient of the J.W. Dafoe Book Prize, and a three-time winner of the Ottawa Book Prize. He was elected to the Royal Society of Canada in 2019. He is a member of the Order of Canada.
Tim Cook
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Cook at the Eden Mills Writers' Festival in 2017
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Born | 1971 (age 52–53)
Kingston, Ontario, Canada
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Known for | Military history of Canada |
Awards | Charles Taylor Prize (2009) Pierre Berton Award (2013) |
Academic background | |
Alma mater |
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Academic work | |
Discipline | Military history |
Institutions | Canadian War Museum |
Cook was born in Kingston, Ontario, and raised in Ottawa. He studied history at Trent UniversityinPeterborough, 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]
His 2000 book, No Place to Run, was awarded the C.P. Stacey Prize for best written work in Canadian military history. In 2006, he published Clio's Warriors, which explores the writing of the world wars in Canada. 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 Prize 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 and in 2018 he published The Secret History of Soldiers: How Canadians Survived the Great War. Both were national best-sellers. Vimy received the 2017 J.W. Dafoe Book Prize and The Secret History received the Ottawa Book Prize. Almost all of these books have been national best sellers.
In June 2020, Cook and J.L. Granatstein edited Canada 1919: A Nation Shaped by War Hardcover (UBC Press) and in September 2020, he published The Fight for History: 75 Years of Forgetting, Remembering, and Remaking Canada's Second World War Hardcover (Allen Lane).[6]
In 2022, he published Lifesavers and Body Snatchers: Medical Care and the Struggle for Survival in the Great War. It was long-listed for the Templer prize; his Vimy book was a finalist for the same prize.
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.[7]
Tim Cook is a member of the Royal Society of Canada and the Order of Canada.[8]
Chapters in Books
Tim Cook, ""Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde: Canadian Medical Officers in the Great War," in Stephen Craig and Dale C. Smith (eds.) Glimpsing Modernity: Military Medicine in World War I (Brill: Publication 2016) 34–59.