On War & Society

Since the late 1990s, Canadian historian Tim Cook has carved out a niche in the field of First World War history. In his two-volume social history of the war, he spoke of a soldiers’ culture, which bound Canadians together on the battlefields and helped them cope with the immense stress and strain of war from 1914 to 1918. This year, published with Allen Lane, Tim released The Secret History of Soldiers, a book dedicated solely to this soldiers’ culture that has become his most significant contribution to our understanding of the First World War in Canada. Tim speaks of a few of the aspects of this soldiers’ culture, including swearing, slang and material objects. At the end of the war, this culture did not necessarily disappear. In Legion halls and reunions, veterans recreated this culture in a civilian world, however temporary it might have been. Tim Cook is the First World War historian at the Canadian War Museum. He is the author of 11 books, including Shock Troops, Vimy and most recently, The Secret Hist