The Fight for History

A NATIONAL BESTSELLER A GLOBE AND MAIL BEST PICK OF THE FALL “Cook [is] an indispensable war historian.… By exploring how Canadians arrived, after so long, at new ways of understanding World War II, Cook shows that even the most calcified historical perspectives can ultimately prove pliable. Anyone fighting for a better grasp of history—whether it’s our constitutional roots, our colonial past, or our heroes and villains—should take heart.” —Maclean's “[Cook] provides some insight into what has been driving this passion for the past and its stories.… What Cook makes clear is that the fight for history and the shaping of social memory is a process that never stops. Against the forces of apathy and indifference we must push back.” —Toronto Star “The influential Canadian military historian Tim Cook … has taken up the torch from Jack Granatstein and the late Desmond Morton as a new generation's pre-eminent voice in the field.… Cook's many strengths are again evident. He writes fluidly, with a sharp eye for detail and the telling anecdote.… His descriptions of the mental challenges that soldiers faced after the war, drawn from letters, are heartbreaking.… After years of neglect, Cook concludes, the Second World War ‘has been waiting for us to return to it.’ As he explains so eloquently, it's an invitation we need to accept.” —Policy Magazine