First World War historian Tim Cook is a finalist in the Ottawa Book Awards for his most recent work, The Madman and the Butcher: the Sensational Wars of Sam Hughes and General Arthur Currie.
The First World War historian from the Canadian War Museum has earned a place among the finalists for the 25th annual Ottawa Book Awards – yet another accolade for the acclaimed author, Tim Cook.
The Madman and the Butcher: the Sensational Wars of Sam Hughes and General Arthur Currie, is Cook’s fifth book and third nomination in the English non-fiction category.
At the Sharp End, the first volume of his two-part series on Canadians fighting in the 1914 to 1918 war, won the 2008 award, and his second volume, Shock Troops, was nominated the year after.
“People should know their history,” says Cook, “but I don’t think we can force feed it down people’s throats.”
In the spirit of making history “palatable,” Cook says he tries to write in an engaging style. His narrative, he says, is what separates historical non-fiction from a history textbook.
The Madman and the Butcher explores the tense relationship between Sam Hughes, Canada’s minister of militia and defence from 1911 to 1916, and Sir Arthur Currie, commander of the Canadian Corps during the First World War.
Hughes is the “madman” in the book’s “slightly sensational title,” says Cook. Though infamous for his huge ego and bigoted attitude, Cook says he tries to show another side of Hughes.
“You can’t be a lunatic and get elected seven times over 30 years, right?” he says of Hughes.
While the book took a year to write, Cook’s research began 10 years ago.
He spent months digging through national archives and found new evidence, including Hughes’s memoirs, to give readers a better understanding of the two men.
Currie is the title’s “butcher,” a reference to Hughes’ accusations after the war. People wanted answers to explain the 68,000 Canadian soldiers who died on the battlefield under the general’s command, says Cook, and Currie became a convenient scapegoat.
To Cook, the general’s “muddied” reputation has yet to completely recover. Currie was a very fine general, says the museum historian, but he is not well-known to Canadians.
Through The Madman and the Butcher, Cook explores why the public believed Hughes’ ruinous charges against Currie.
“It’s a complex interplay of these two men . . . played out against the backdrop of this horrific war,” he says.
The Ottawa Book Awards and its French counterpart, Le Prix du livre d’Ottawa, recognize four winners each year for the top fiction and non-fiction books in both official languages.
Cook joins four other finalists in the English non-fiction category. A three-person jury will announce the winners on Oct. 27 at Library and Archives Canada.
The City of Ottawa awards the prizes to “shine the spotlight” on Ottawa’s literary community, cultural planner Faith Seltzer said in an email.
Seltzer has organized the ceremony for the past 11 years. She says the awards alert residents to local writers, which increases book sales and helps writers build careers.
As an added incentive, each finalist receives $1,000, and each winner receives $7,500.
The prize money comes from public funds and helps ease past fears that authors will move to cities such as Toronto or Montreal to “live by their art,” says Ottawa City cultural planner Anik Despres.
Ottawa writers have taken the hint. The first awards in 1986 had just one category, which alternated yearly between fiction and non-fiction, says Seltzer. By 2004, it took four awards to handle the growing number .of submissions.