Norman Cantor

Norman F. Cantor (born November 19, 1929 in Winnipeg , Manitoba , † September 18, 2004 in Miami , Florida ) was a Canadian -American historian focusing on the Middle Ages . He is best known in the Anglo-Saxon-speaking area for his standard textbook on the Middle Ages, The Civilization of the Middle Ages (1963). A heavily revised new edition was published in 1994 and contains more recent research results, particularly on topics that are of particular interest from a contemporary perspective, such as the role of women in medieval society and history.

Cantor studied history at the University of Manitoba in Canada, where he received his BA in 1952. In the same year he went to the USA and received his MA from Princeton University in 1953. He was a Rhodes scholarship holder for a year at the University of Oxford, UK . He finally received his Ph. D. from Princeton University in 1957 and began teaching there.

In 1960 he became a professor at Columbia University and stayed there until 1966. He taught at Brandeis University until 1970 and at Binghamton University until 1976. At the University of Illinois at Chicago he was appointed Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs . From 1978 to 1981 he was Dean of the faculty of the College of Arts and Science at New York University . There he ended his career in 1999 as professor emeritus of history, sociology and comparative literature. In the meantime he was Fulbright Professor at Tel Aviv University from 1987 to 1988.

Cantor died of heart failure on September 18, 2004 in his Miami apartment . He leaves behind his wife Mindi (née Mozart), who was married in 1957, his daughter Jude and his son Howard.

Works (selection)

• The Medieval World 300-1300. New York 1963
• Perspectives on the European Past. New York, London 1971
• The Civilization of the Middle Ages. New York 1993. Revised and expanded edition of Medieval History: the Life and Death of a Civilization. (1963). The new edition contains recent research results, especially on topics that are of interest from today's perspective, for example the role of women in medieval society.
• How to Study History. (Together with Richard I. Schneider), 1967. A textbook that elaborates the basic methods and principles of historical science, including the use of primary and secondary sources.
• Medieval Society, 400-1450. 1967
• The English: a history of politics and society to 1760. New York 1967
• Western Civilization: Its Genesis and Destiny. Edition in two volumes, 1969
• The Meaning of the Middle Ages: a Sociological and Cultural History. Boston 1973
• Twentieth-Century Culture: Modernism to Deconstruction. New York 1988
• Inventing the Middle Ages: The Lives, Works and Ideas of the Great Medievalists of the Twentieth Century. New York 1991. In this historiography of the Middle Ages, Cantor tells the life and work of twenty medieval historians, including CS Lewis and JRR Tolkien and other founders of 20th century history. "Any bright American college sophomore who today takes a good survey course on medieval history has a better understanding of the components of the medieval world than anyone who wrote before 1895," said Cantor.
• Medieval Lives: Eight Charismatic Men and Women of the Middle Ages. Scranton, Pennsylvania 1994
• In the Wake of the Plague: The Black Death and the World It Made. New York 2001
• The Last Knight: The Twilight of the Middle Ages and the Birth of the Modern Era. New York 2004, a book about John of Gaunt, 1st Duke of Lancaster
• Alexander the Great: Journey to the End of the Earth , together with Dee Ranieri, posthumously 2005

Web links

• New York Times News Service obituary