REVIEW BY JIM SCOTT
It is with eager anticipation that I pick up any book by the Canadian War Museum’s Tim Cook and I don’t feel a single twinge of guilt that everyone else will have to wait until September to do the same. Like his other award-winning books, (Vimy, Shock Troops etc.), this one weaves soldier’s letters, cartoons and trench newspapers into an insightful and readable narrative. The Secret History of Soldiers is a departure from traditional military history in that it focuses on what individual soldiers did to cope with life and death in the greatest cataclysm any citizens have ever had to endure. How did farm boys and town dwellers of early 20th century Canada become fearsome warriors amidst a satanic landscape of poison gas, rats, mud and body parts? What did it take for citizen soldiers to learn martial skills and adapt to a fiery hell while officers asked them to return again and again to the same nightmare?
At once heartwarming for the reminders of a simpler time and heartbreaking for the unimaginable losses of a century ago, this book fits well with Cook’s other volumes on the Great War. In fact, it will breathe added life into all other Great War books. You will be reminded of the lives lived by our grand-parents and great-parents and what this world has lost. (penguinrandomhouse.com/books).
