Dr. Tim Cook Awarded the Charles Taylor Prize for Literary Non-Fiction

Dr. Tim Cook Awarded the Charles Taylor Prize for Literary Non-Fiction

Ottawa, Ontario, February 10, 2009 – The Canadian War Museum would like to congratulate its First World War historian, Dr. Tim Cook, on winning the 2009 Charles Taylor Prize for Literary Non-Fiction for his latest work, Shock Troops: Canadians Fighting the Great War, 1917-1918 (Volume two). The award was presented to Dr. Cook at a ceremony yesterday in Toronto.

"On behalf of the Canadian War Museum and its staff, I would like to congratulate Dr. Cook for winning this award," said Mark O’Neill, the War Museum’s Director General. "Dr. Cook’s work reminds us of the War Museum’s continuing strength as a centre for innovative research and the dissemination of knowledge. The Museum is proud of its entire historical staff, who share the results of their ongoing, original research with Canadians and others around the world through exhibitions, lectures, books and articles, thus increasing appreciation and understanding of Canada’s rich military history."

Dr. Tim Cook has been the Museum’s First World War historian since early 2002. He is responsible for the historical content of Gallery 2, For Crown and Country: The South African and First World Wars, and one of the Museum’s current temporary exhibitions, Trench Life: A Survival Guide, which will be presented until April 2009.

Dr. Cook’s At the Sharp End: Canadians Fighting the Great War 1914-1916 was awarded the J.W. Dafoe prize in 2007, and earned an Ottawa Book Award in 2008. His first book, No Place to Run: The Canadian Corps and Gas Warfare in the First World War (2000) won the 1999-2000 C.P. Stacey Award for the best book published in Canada on a Canadian military topic. His second book, Clio’s Warriors: Canadian Historians and the Writing of the World Wars, was published in 2006. Dr. Cook is also an Adjunct Professor of History at Ottawa’s Carleton University.

Shock Troops joins At the Sharp End to complete Dr. Cook’s two-volume account of the role of Canada and Canadians in the First World War, and is published by The Penguin Press.

The Canadian War Museum is Canada’s national museum of military history. Its mission is to promote public understanding of Canada’s military history in its personal, national, and international dimensions.

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Canadian War Museum
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