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Victoria Author Wins National History Prize
Victoria author Mark Zuehlke's For Honour's Sake: The War of 1812 and the Brokering of an Uneasy Peace has been awarded the Canadian Authors Association Literary Awards 2007 Lela Common Award for Canadian History. The award consists of a $2500 cash prize and an engraved silver medal. Zuehlke will be presented with the award at the upcoming 86th Annual National Conference of the CAA on July 7 in Ottawa.
Regarding their decision to award the prize to Zuehlke the judges commented that the book was a "well-written popular history of the War of 1812 with a fine balance between politics, military operations, and diplomacy. Notable for being fair and balanced in its treatments of the belligerants. Zuehlke's book is one of the best popular accounts of the War of 1812, notable for the way it relates what happened on the battlegrounds of North America and at sea to the diplomatic struggle between Britain and the United States. The wonderful irony is that word of the peace, finally hammered out in Ghent, Belgium at Christmas 1814, did not reach the United States in time to prevent the battle of New Orleans, the worst British defeat of the war.
"An approachable account of a period in Canadian history that continues to generate much interest. Dense with military strategy and details, details, details....Although many may want a definitive book on the War of 1812 that declares a clear winner, Zuehlke's thoroughly researched book makes sense of the opposing accounts of that time and the ambiguous results of the conflict. Beyond the specifics of the battles and the Treaty of Ghent that brought an end to them, this book sheds some light on the murky area that lies between war and peace.";
Zuehlke is one of Canada's preeminent popular historians, whose ongoing series on the battles fought by Canadians in World War II has garnered much critical praise. One of those books, Holding Juno: Canada's Heroic Defence of the D-Day Beaches, June 7-12, 1944 won the 2006 City of Victoria Butler Book Prize. He is also the author of a popular mystery series of which the premiere novel, Hands Like Clouds, won the Crime Writers of Canada's Arthur Ellis Award for Best First Novel.
The Lela Common Award for Canadian History was established in 1997 through a bequest from the estate of Lela Florence Common, a long-time member of the Hamilton Branch of the CAA, who was active throughout her life in writing and researching historical topics. Past winners have included Will Ferguson (2001), Ken McGoogan (2002), Charlotte Gray (2005), and Jack Granatstein (2006).
Regarding their decision to award the prize to Zuehlke the judges commented that the book was a "well-written popular history of the War of 1812 with a fine balance between politics, military operations, and diplomacy. Notable for being fair and balanced in its treatments of the belligerants. Zuehlke's book is one of the best popular accounts of the War of 1812, notable for the way it relates what happened on the battlegrounds of North America and at sea to the diplomatic struggle between Britain and the United States. The wonderful irony is that word of the peace, finally hammered out in Ghent, Belgium at Christmas 1814, did not reach the United States in time to prevent the battle of New Orleans, the worst British defeat of the war.
"An approachable account of a period in Canadian history that continues to generate much interest. Dense with military strategy and details, details, details....Although many may want a definitive book on the War of 1812 that declares a clear winner, Zuehlke's thoroughly researched book makes sense of the opposing accounts of that time and the ambiguous results of the conflict. Beyond the specifics of the battles and the Treaty of Ghent that brought an end to them, this book sheds some light on the murky area that lies between war and peace.";
Zuehlke is one of Canada's preeminent popular historians, whose ongoing series on the battles fought by Canadians in World War II has garnered much critical praise. One of those books, Holding Juno: Canada's Heroic Defence of the D-Day Beaches, June 7-12, 1944 won the 2006 City of Victoria Butler Book Prize. He is also the author of a popular mystery series of which the premiere novel, Hands Like Clouds, won the Crime Writers of Canada's Arthur Ellis Award for Best First Novel.
The Lela Common Award for Canadian History was established in 1997 through a bequest from the estate of Lela Florence Common, a long-time member of the Hamilton Branch of the CAA, who was active throughout her life in writing and researching historical topics. Past winners have included Will Ferguson (2001), Ken McGoogan (2002), Charlotte Gray (2005), and Jack Granatstein (2006).
Submitted on June 30, 2007 in By David.
