Ottawa·UpdatedTim Cook, the chief historian at the Canadian War Museum and the country’s “pre-eminent military historian,” has died, the museum announced Sunday. Cook was a ‘passionate ambassador’ for museum, Canadian military historyTrevor Pritchard · CBC News · Posted: Oct 26, 2025 6:03 PM EDT | Last Updated: 15 minutes agoListen to this articleEstimated 3 minutesCanadian military historian Tim Cook poses in front of a maquette of the Vimy Ridge memorial at the Canadian War Museum in 2017. Cook, one of the country’s pre-eminent military historians, has died, the Ottawa museum announced Sunday. (Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press)Tim Cook, the chief historian at the Canadian War Museum and the country’s “pre-eminent military historian,” has died, the museum announced Sunday.Cook was “a passionate ambassador” for both the museum and Canadian military history, and his contributions to the Ottawa museum over the past two-plus decades have been “enormous,” said the museum’s president and CEO Caroline Dromaguet in a statement.Cook published more than 19 books and won numerous awards, the museum said, including the Ottawa Book Award for literary non-fiction on four separate occasions.In his 2022 book Life Savers and Body Snatchers: Medical Care and the Struggle for Survival in the Great War, Cook unearthed evidence that Canadian doctors were part of a British program that harvested organs from slain First World War soldiers without getting consent.”I had seen snippets of this in the letters and diaries of doctors, but I could scarcely believe it,” Cook told CBC at the time. “It’s nowhere in any of our history books. It’s not part of our story of how we treated the fallen.”His other notable works included No Place to Run: The Canadian Corps and Gas Warfare in the First World War and The Necessary War, Volume 1: Canadians Fighting The Second World War: 1939-1943. Both won the C.P. Stacey Award, handed out annually to the best book in the field of Canadian military history.Order of CanadaLate last year, Cook published The Good Allies, a deep dive into the relationship between the U.S. and Canada during the Second World War.”As I was writing the book, I kept thinking, there are lessons [for] today. We are continually still struggling to figure out, ‘How do we work with the United States? How do we pull our weight, and yet at the same time take control of our own sovereignty?'” Cook told CBC Radio’s All in a Day in November 2024.”The debate over two per cent spending for defence and other issues … are always with us. And yet, we’ve been good allies.”Cook’s many accolades also included receiving the Governor General’s History Award and being named to the Order of Canada.Cook was 54. The museum did not share his cause of death.CorrectionsA previous version of this story mistakenly attributed comments made in a museum press release to a spokesperson. The comments were made by museum president and CEO Caroline Dromaguet.Oct 26, 2025 6:56 PM EDTABOUT THE AUTHORTrevor Pritchard is the weekend assignment producer at CBC Ottawa, as well as a digital reporter and occasional newsreader. He’s previously reported in Toronto, Saskatoon and Cornwall, Ont.
Tim Cook, chief historian at Canadian War Museum, dies at 54
