Granatstein, J. L.

Person

Granatstein, J. L.

1939-

J. L. (Jack Lawrence) Granatstein is a historian, author, educator and defence and foreign policy commentator. He is the author of several works on Canadian military and political history, including 'Sacred trust? Brian Mulroney and the Conservatives in power,' (1986), 'Pirouette: Pierre Trudeau and Canadian foreign policy' (1990), and studies of Mackenzie King.

He was born in Toronto in 1939 and attended Toronto public schools, Le Collège Militaire Royal de St-Jean (Grad. Dipl., 1959), Royal Military College, Kingston (B.A., 1961), University of Toronto (M.A., 1962), and Duke University (PhD., 1966). He served in the Canadian Army (1956-1966), then joined the History Department at York University, Toronto (1966-1995) where, after taking early retirement in 1995, he is Distinguished Research Professor of History Emeritus.

His activities outside of York are numerous. In 1995, Jack Granatstein served as one of three commissioners on the Special Commission on the Restructuring of the Canadian Forces Reserves, and in 1997, he advised the Minister of National Defence on the future of the Canadian Forces. He served as the Director and CEO of the Canadian War Museum (1998-2001), after which he joined the museum's advisory council. Granatstein has served as a member of the Royal Military College of Canada's Board of Governors. He is also co-chair of the Council for Canadian Security in the 21st Century and co-chair of the Advisory Committee of the Canadian Defence and Foreign Affairs Institute. In 2003 Granatstein was the J. B. Smallman Visiting Professor at the University of Western Ontario. Granatstein has held the Canada Council's Killam senior fellowship twice (1982-4, 1991-3), was editor of the Canadian Historical Review (1981-1984), and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada (1982- ). The Royal Society awarded him the J.B. Tyrell Historical Gold Medal (1992) "for outstanding work in the history of Canada," and his book The Generals (1993), won the J.W. Dafoe Prize and the UBC Medal for Canadian Biography. He has been awarded honorary doctorates by Memorial University of Newfoundland (1993), the University of Calgary (1994), Ryerson Polytechnic University (1999), the University of Western Ontario (2000) and McMaster University (2000). The Conference of Defence Associations Institute named him winner of The Vimy Award "for achievement and effort in the field of Canadian defence and security" in 1996. He is an Officer of the Order of Canada (1997).

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2014-07-22: Migrated to AtoM
2015-06-26: last updated
2018-04-04 KCP: Added publications to biographical sketch