2017 Winner:
Geoffrey Hayes
Crerar’s Lieutenants
The C.P. Stacey Prize Committee members have unanimously agreed to grant the 2017 prize to Geoffrey Hayes, for his book Crerar’s Lieutenants: Inventing the Canadian Junior Army Officer, 1939-1945 (UBC Press, 2017).
Hayes’ focus on junior commissioned ranks is new and key to understanding the training and combat successes of Canada’s Second World War army. In this mature study, the author draws upon multiple perspectives. He utilizes comparative analysis, examining a broad historiography and deploying transnational sources and ideas to challenge myths in the field. This work particularly draws upon concepts of masculinity and their impact on these junior officers, while reaching well balanced conclusions, built upon deep understanding and empathy for the junior officers. The Committee was impressed at how the author weaves superb literary sources into his analysis and succeeds in shedding new light on diverse aspects of the historical experience. This book is a ‘page-turner’ built upon decades of research and teaching in which Geoffrey Hayes is recognized as a leading scholar.
Geoffrey Hayes is an associate professor in the Department of History at the University of Waterloo. He is the author of The Lincs: A History of the Lincoln and Welland Regiment, as well as Waterloo County: An Illustrated History. He is also the co-editor of three volumes: Vimy Ridge: A Canadian Reassessment; Afghanistan: Transition Under Threat; and Canada and the Second World War: Essays in Honour of Terry Copp.
About the C.P. Stacey Award
The C.P. Stacey Award is named in honour of Charles Perry Stacey, historical officer to the Canadian Army during the Second World War and later a long-time professor of history at the University of Toronto. The C.P. Stacey Award is presented annually to the best book in the field of Canadian military history, broadly defined, including the study of war and society.
Past Winners
2016 | Brock Millman, Polarity, Patriotism and Dissent in Great War Canada, 1914-1919 (University of Toronto Press)
2015 | Norman Hillmer, O.D. Skelton: A Portrait of Canadian Ambition (University of Toronto Press)
2014 | Tim Cook, The Necessary War, Volume 1: Canadians Fighting The Second World War: 1939-1943 (Allen Lane)
2014 | Richard M. Reid, African Canadians in Union Blue: Volunteering for the Cause in the Civil War (UBC Press)
2013 | Teresa Iacobelli, Death or Deliverance: Canadian Courts Martial in the Great War (UBC Press)
2012 | Andrew Burtch, Give Me Shelter: The Failure of Canada’s Cold War Civil Defence (UBC Press)
2011 | Dean Frederick Oliver and Jack Granatstein, The Oxford Companion to Canadian Military History (Oxford University Press)
2009 | Kevin Spooner, Canada, The Congo Crisis and U.N. Peacekeeping 1960-64 (UBC Press)
2008 | Paul Douglas Dickson: A Thoroughly Canadian General: A Biography of General H.D.G. Crerar (McGill-Queen’s University Press)
2008 | Stephen Brumwell, Paths of Glory: The Life and Death of General James Wolfe (McGill-Queen’s University Press)
2006 | Douglas Delaney, Bert Hoffmeister: The Soldier’s General (UBC Press)
2004 | Béatrice Richard, La mémoire de Dieppe: Radioscopie d’un mythe (VLB éditeur)
2004 | Marc Milner, Battle of the Atlantic (Vanwell Publishing Ltd.)
2002 | Brian Tennyson and Roger Sarty, Guardian of the Gulf: Sydney, Cape Breton and the Atlantic Wars (University of Toronto Press)
2000 | Tim Cook, No Place to Run: The Canadian Corps and Gas Warfare in the First World War (UBC Press)
1998 | Jonathan Vance, Death So Noble: Memory, Meaning and the First World War (UBC Press)
1996 | George Blackburn, The Guns of Victory (McClelland & Stewart)
1994 | Desmond Morton, When Your Number’s Up: The Canadian Soldier in the First World War (Vintage Canada)
1992 | Bill McAndrew and Terry Copp, Battle Exhaustion: Soldiers and Psychiatrists in the Canadian Army, 1939-1945 (McGill-Queen’s University Press)
1990 | Robert Vogel and Terry Copp, Maple Leaf Route
1988 | Norman Hillmer and W. A. B. Douglas, The Official History of the Royal Canadian Air Force, Volume II: The Creation of a National Air Force (University of Toronto Press)