Skip to content

From the archives

Referendum Trudeau

He campaigned in poetry but governed in prose

Rinkside Reading

What does hockey’s literature say about the sport?

Alarm Bells

Fort McMurray and fires hence

Adam Chapnick

Adam Chapnick teaches defence studies at the Canadian Forces College.

Articles by
Adam Chapnick

The Medical Corps

At the juncture of two oaths October 2022
Not even a pandemic can slow down one of Canada’s great military historians, Tim Cook. The best-selling author of Vimy: The Battle and the Legend and Shock Troops, which won the Charles Taylor Prize for Literary Non-fiction in 2009, Cook spent his lockdown producing a comprehensive account of the “entwinement of the fighting units and the medical services” during the First World…

Service Records

The changing ways we remember November 2020
Tim Cook has spent the last two decades publishing well-received, accessible accounts of Canada’s military history. Much of his early career focused on the First World War (his Shock Troops: Canadians Fighting the Great War, 19171918 won the 2009 Charles Taylor Prize for Literary Non-Fiction). More recently, he has written poignantly about that war’s…

Arts Advantage

Why enrolling in the liberal arts is smarter than you think May 2015
According to Statistics Canada, over the last 20 years the number of employed 25- to 34-year-olds who have completed a university degree has risen dramatically. Among men, the number has increased from 17 to 27 percent. The gains among women have been even greater, from 19 to 40 percent. This past September, however, came a pivotal shift, at least in the province of…

Climbing Down from Vimy Ridge

One of Canada’s leading historians makes a different case for military success October 2014
This year marks the 100th anniversary of the start of the Great War, and efforts to reflect on the Canadian wartime experience are well under way across the country. The government of Canada is committing tens of millions of dollars to remember our national achievements and sacrifices, and countless new books will undoubtedly be released to do the…

Marching as to War

How two unlikely prime ministers steered Canada through the great 20th-century battles December 2012
Is Canada a warrior nation or a peaceable kingdom? Few authors are better qualified than Tim Cook to answer a question that has become a part of the national discourse ever since the current government was first elected in 2006. An internationally acclaimed, award-winning historian at the Canadian War Museum, Cook is one of Canada’s best at integrating the academic expertise of the traditional researcher with the literary flare of the successful…

Cold War, Bright Stars

Driven by military spending, Canada took a lead role in the early space race September 2011
It has been more than half a decade since the Liberal government of Paul Martin released its International Policy Statement. As the title of that document made clear, it differed significantly from its predecessors. It marked the first time that a Canadian government had undertaken an international policy review. In the 21st century, the thinking…