2008 C.P. Stacey Award Winners / 2008 Recipients du priz C.P. Stacey

The C.P. Stacey Prize Committee has forwarded me the press release for the latest recipients of the C.P. Stacey Prize. (Here's a picture of Stacey when still a Colonel). The release is as follows:

Le Comité canadien d'histoire de la Deuxième Guerre mondiale et la Commission canadienne d'histoire militaire annoncent les noms des auteurs ayant remporté le prix C.P. Stacey pour l'année 2008. À partir d'une longue liste de titres en histoire militaire canadienne, les juges se sont arrêtés aux travaux de Paul Douglas Dickson, A Thoroughly Canadian General: A Biography of General H.D.G. Crerar (2007), University of Toronto Press et de Stephen Brumwell, Paths of Glory: The Life and Death of General James Wolfe (2006), McGill-Queen's Press. Norman Hillmer, Serge Bernier et Doug Delaney ont conclu que ces deux auteurs avaient contribué de façon significative à l'histoire militaire canadienne. Dickson, par sa monumentale recherche concernant un militaire canadien méconnu, mais marquant en ce qui concerne le Canada dans la Deuxième Guerre mondiale; et, Brumwell, par son éloquente prose et son interprétation convaincante du controversé James Wolfe.

A Thoroughly Canadian General comble un immense vide dans l'historiographie canadienne de la Deuxième Guerre mondiale. S'appuyant sur les résultats d'une recherche méticuleuse, Dickson suit habilement le cours de la vie et de la carrière militaire d'un homme qui s'est battu, à Ottawa, pour la création de la 1ère Armée canadienne, une formation qu'il a ensuite conduite au combat. Dickson décrit, de façon judicieuse et précise, le portrait d'un officier canadien qui apprend son métier durant la Grande Guerre, manoeuvre habilement dans la bureaucratie militaire de l'entre-deux-guerres, présentant son idée d'une « grosse armée » au gouvernement dans les débuts de la Deuxième Guerre mondiale, combattant les Allemands dans deux théâtres d'opérations et veillant aux intérêts canadiens face à nos alliés. Ce livre rappellera aux militaires, hommes d'état et universitaires que les batailles bureaucratiques, les combats et la guerre de coalition ne sont jamais faciles.

Dans Paths of Glory, Stephen Brumwell défie les nombreuses interprétations qui ont fait, du major général James Wolfe, un personnage tiré d'Hamlet, malade, sadique dont la seule vertu fut la chance. À partir de nombreuses sources primaires et secondaires, Brumwell tisse l'histoire de l'ascencion de Wolfe dans l'armée britannique, tout en nous présentant, d'une façon approfondie et lucide, la société britannique du 18e siècle et certaines périodes de combat. De ce texte extrêmement bien écrit émerge un portrait à la fois sympathique et complexe, celui d'un homme à la santé fragile, ambitieux, astucieux dans ses tactiques et entièrement au service de ses hommes et de son Roi.

The Canadian Committee for the History of the Second World War and the Canadian Commission of Military History are pleased to announce two winners for the 2008 C.P. Stacey Award. From a substantial list of Canadian military history titles published in 2006 or 2007, the judges chose for the prize Paul Douglas Dickson's A Thoroughly Canadian General: A Biography of General H.D.G. Crerar (2007), published by University of Toronto Press and Stephen Brumwell's Paths of Glory: The Life and Death of General James Wolfe (2006), from McGill-Queen's [University] Press. The judges, Norman Hillmer, Serge Bernier and Doug Delaney concluded that both authors made noteworthy contributions to the field - Dickson for his mass of research on a little-known, yet critical, figure of Canada's Second World War, and Brumwell for the eloquence of his prose and his convincing re-interpretation of the controversial James Wolfe.

With A Thoroughly Canadian General, Paul Dickson has filled a gaping void in the historiography of Canada's Second World War, and he has done so with authority. Backed by an impressive mass of meticulous research, Dickson ably chronicles the life and military career of the man who fought many Ottawa battles to create First Canadian Army and commanded that formation in action. Dickson is judicious in his account, which is a convincing warts-and-all look at a Canadian officer learning his trade during the Great War, negotiating his way through the military bureaucracy during the inter-war period, steering his case for a 'big army' through Cabinet in the early years of the Second World War, fighting the Germans in two separate theatres, and guarding Canada's interests with its Allies. This book is sure to remind current soldiers, statesmen, and scholars that bureaucratic struggles, battle, and coalition warfare are never easy.

Stephen Brumwell's Paths of Glory challenges past interpretations of Major-General James Wolfe as a sickly and sadistic Hamlet figure whose only real virtue was luck. Drawing on a wide range of primary and secondary sources, Brumwell weaves the story of Wolfe's rise in the British Army with masterful expositions of eighteenth century British society and lucid accounts of period battles. What emerges from Brumwell's page-turning text is a sympathetic and complex portrait - one of a man in ill-health, driven by ambition, tactically astute, and absolutely committed both to the soldiers who served him and his King.

The C.P. Stacey Award is an award in honour of author and long-serving Official Historian at the Department of National Defence, Charles P. Stacey. His work on the official histories of the Canadian army during the Second World War is considered a model for similar histories. He trained several generations of military historians, and his influence is still felt in the field of military history. The aim of the award is to highlight the best book written in a two-year period on the Canadian military experience. The award covers studies of all three services, including operational histories, biographies, unit histories and works of synthesis (if they include original insights and/or new material). It can also include high quality edited collections and annotated memoirs. The call for nominations for the 2010 Stacey Prize, to be given for the best book on Canadian military history published in 2008 and 2009, will soon be issued. After the 2010 competition, the Stacey prize will be given annually, rather than each two years.