Upcoming book on Sir Arthur Currie

Mark Humphries, a PhD candidate at the University of Western Ontario, sent me a message to let me know about an upcoming publication of his about to hit the streets. Mark has edited The Selected Papers of Sir Arthur Currie: Diaries, Letters, and Report to the Ministry, 1917-33 (Waterloo: Laurier Centre of Military Strategic and Disarmament Studies, 2008). As the press release notes:

Sir Arthur Currie is Canada's most famous military commander. Probably the best corps commander of the Great War, Currie was also paranoid, insecure, and aloof. His personality won him few friends and many enemies. At the same time he was a devoted husband and father and protective of the reputation of the men who had fought under his command. Introduced and edited by Mark Humphries, this collection brings together selections from Currie's private diary (1917-1919), his correspondence (1917-1933), and his complete final Report to the Ministry.

This is the first time that Currie's papers have been published together in a single collection. What emerges is a vivid, human portrait of Sir Arthur Currie the individual and the troubled times in which he lived. Max Aitken (Lord Beaverbrook), Robert Borden, Harry Crerar, A.F. Duguid, Douglas Haif, Arthur Meighen, Edward Kemp, J.H. MacBrien, Mackenzie King, Victor Odlum, and George Perley are just some of the important figures with whom Currie maintained a voluminous correspondence. Currie's letters to them as well as various provincial premiers, religious, and political figures illuminate not only events at the front, but also Canada's war at home and the legacy of the Great War for Canadian society.

The book will be available for the LCMSDS Press of Wilfrid Laurier University and definitely looks like a must read.