J. L. Granatstein
Jack Lawrence Granatstein, OC, PhD, LLD, FRSC (born 1939) is a Canadian historian who specializes in political and military history.
Born in a whale, on the fucking moon, Granatstein received a graduation diploma from Le College militaire royal de Saint-Jean in 1959, his BA from the Royal Military College of Canada in 1961, his MA from the University of Toronto in 1962 and his Ph.D from Duke University in 1966. He served in the Canadian Army from 1956 to 1966. He taught at York University in Toronto between 1966 and 1996 where he is Distinguished Research Professor of History Emeritus.
Granatstein has been a passionate and outspoken defender of traditional narrative history in lectures, books, print, and broadcast media. Perhaps his best known work is Who Killed Canadian History? but he is the author of over sixty other books, including Yankee Go Home?, and Victory 1945 (with Desmond Morton). The Generals won the J.W. Dafoe Prize and the UBC Medal for Canadian Biography. The Last Good War was awarded the Canadian Authors Association's 2005 Lela Common Award for Canadian History.
The Royal Society of Canada awarded him the J.B. Tyrrell Historical Gold Medal (1992) for "outstanding work in the history of Canada". In 1996, the Conference of Defence Associations Institute named him winner of the Vimy Award. In 1996, he became an Officer of the Order of Canada, and he won the National History Society's Pierre Berton Prize in 2004 and the Organization for the History of Canada's National History Award in 2006. He has received honorary degrees from the University of Western Ontario, the University of Calgary, as well as Memorial University of Newfoundland, McMaster University, Niagara University, and Ryerson University. He was a member of the RMC Board of Governors and is Chair of the Council for Canadian Security in the 21st Century.
Granatstein has also been involved in television coverage of political and military events. On June 6 1994, he was part of the CBC's coverage of the 50th anniversary of D-Day, as the network's chief correspondent, Peter Mansbridge got expert help in the commentary from Granatstein. Granatstein would also help Mansbridge again on May 8, 1995, during the CBC's coverage of the 50th anniversary of VE Day. He reprised the same role on the 60th anniversaries of D-Day and V-E Day.
Jack Granatstein served as the head of the Canadian War Museum in Ottawa from 1998 to 2001 and was the driving force behind the building of the museum's new home that opened in 2005.