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| Tim Cook | |
Canadian author Tim Cook, who served as the chief historian of the Canadian War Museum, died October 26. He was 54. Quill & Quire reported that he joined the museum in 2002, where he served as the First World War historian until being promoted to chief historian and director of research in 2022. He was named a member of the Order of Canada in 2014 and a member of the Royal Society of Canada in 2019.
"Tim Cook was one of Canada's most prolific, best known, and influential historians and authors, said Caroline Dromaguet, president and CEO of the Canadian War Museum and the Canadian Museum of History, adding that he "was a passionate ambassador both for the Museum and for Canadian military history. He has forever left his own mark on history."
An award-winning author, Cook wrote and edited more than 20 books about the Canadian wartime experience, beginning with No Place to Run: The Canadian Corps and Gas Warfare in the First World War, which won the C.P. Stacey Award for most distinguished book in Canadian military history.
His many other honors included the Ottawa Book Awards (which he last won in 2023 for Lifesavers and Body Snatchers: Medical Care and the Struggle for Survival in the Great War); the Charles Taylor Prize (2009 winner for Shock Troops: Canadians Fighting the Great War, 1917-1918), and the Lionel Gelber Prize, for which his most recent book, The Good Allies: How Canada and the United States Fought Together to Defeat Fascism During the Second World War, was shortlisted this year. His book The Unquiet Western Front will be published in 2026.
Nick Garrison, publishing director of Allen Lane, said, "There is little we can say to add to Tim's legacy. His many awards and the lasting impression his work has left on a generation of readers say more than any of us can. But no award captures what Tim meant to us. Over the course of many years and many books, Tim came to be known to all of us as much for his warmth and generosity of spirit as he was for his talent as a writer, and as eager to talk about family as he was to talk about history. He will be bitterly missed by all who worked with him and admired him."