Legion magazine one of three finalists for Pierre Berton history award

Legion magazine is one of three finalists for this year's Governor General's History Award for Excellence in Popular Media -The Pierre Berton Award. The other candidates for the award, founded  and managed by Canada's National History Society (publishers of Canada's History magazine), include military historians Tim Cook and Mark Zuehlke. 

The prize includes $5,000, a medal, and a trip for two to the official ceremonies in Ottawa. The award is presented by the Governor General at Rideau Hall on Tuesday, November 19th, 2013.The short list for this year's award comes on the eve of the centenary of the beginning of World War 1 and the 70th anniversary of D-Day and the Normandy Landings.

"One of Canada's oldest independent magazines, published continuously since 1926, Legion Magazine is also one of the largest with a print and online readership of close to 900,000," [said a release]. Its bi-monthly magazine features the work of Canada's leading military historians, and regularly provides insight into the history of the Royal Canadian Navy, The Royal Canadian Air Force and the Canadian Army. They also introduce readers to a vast collection of war art, produce valued maps, posters and timelines to better illustrate Canada's military experience. Since 2010, Legion Magazine has invested in publishing a series of critically acclaimed special interest publications chronicling World War I, World War II and the Korean War. Competing with every other genre of magazine published in Canada, it is noteworthy that their special edition on World War I:The War That Shaped A Nation received an honourable mention at the National Magazine Awards as well as bronze medal at the National Newsstand Awards in 2011 and their issue War of 1812: The War That Saved Canada was awarded first prize in the prestigious Canadian Cover Awards."

Cook is the Great War Historian at the Canadian War Museum and an award-winning author. whose most recent work was Warlords:Borden, Mackenzie and Canada's Two World Wars. Zuehlke has, among other things, developed a ten-book history of the Canadian World War II experience, the most recent volume of which was Tragedy at Dieppe: Operation Jubilee, August 19, 1942.

Past recipients of the award -- established in 1994 with Pierre Berton as the first recipient -- include Peter C. Newman, Charlotte Gray, Jacques Lacoursière, Jack Granatstein, Will Ferguson, Paul Gross, Des Morton, CBC's Canada: A People's History; The CRB Foundation's Heritage Minutes, Historia TV's "J'ai La Memoire Que Tourne," and the Dictionary for Canadian Biography.