J.L. GRANATSTEIN OC, Ph.D, LL.D, D.Litt, D.Hum.Litt., FRSC

Jack Lawrence Granatstein was born in Toronto on 21 May 1939. He attended Toronto public schools, Le Collège militaire royal de St-Jean (Grad. Dipl., 1959), the Royal Military College, Kingston (B.A., 1961), the University of Toronto (M.A., 1962), and Duke University (Ph.D., 1966). He served in the Canadian Army (1956-66), then joined the History Department at York University, Toronto (1966-95) where, after taking early retirement, he is Distinguished Research Professor of History Emeritus. He was the Rowell Jackman Fellow at the Canadian Institute of International Affairs (1996-2000) and was a member of the Royal Military College of Canada Board of Governors (1997-2005). From 1 July 1998 to 30 June 2000, he was the Director and CEO of the Canadian War Museum in Ottawa. He was then Special Adviser to the Director of the Museum (2000-01), a member of the Canadian War Museum Committee (2001-06), and chair of the Museum’s Advisory Council (2001-06). He is a member of the Board of Trustees of the Canadian Museum of Civilization (2006- ), and is now chair of the Board’s War Museum Committee.

Granatstein has been an Officer of the Order of Canada since 1996. He held the Canada Council's Killam senior fellowship twice (1982-84, 1991-93), was the editor of the Canadian Historical Review (1981-84), and was a founder of the Organization for the History of Canada (which gave him its first National History Award in 2006). He has been a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada since 1982 and in 1992 was awarded the Society’s J.B. Tyrrell Historical Gold Medal "for outstanding work in the history of Canada." His book, The Generals (1993), won the J.W. Dafoe Prize and the UBC Medal for Canadian Biography. Canada’s National History Society named him the winner of the Pierre Berton Award for popular history (2004), and the Canadian Authors Association gave him its Lela Common Award for Canadian History in 2006.

He holds honorary doctorates from Memorial University of Newfoundland (1993), the University of Calgary (1994), Ryerson Polytechnic University (1999), the University of Western Ontario (2000), McMaster University (2000), and Niagara University (2004). He is a Senior Fellow of Massey College (2000- ). The Conference of Defence Associations Institute presented him the Vimy Award “for achievement and effort in the field of Canadian defence and security” (1996), and he is now a Director of the CDAI and a member of its Executive Committee (2005- ).
Granatstein writes on 20th Century Canadian national history--the military, defence and foreign policy, Canadian-American relations, the public service, politics, and the universities. He comments regularly on historical questions, defence, and public affairs in the press and on radio and television; he provided the historical commentary for the CBC's coverage of the 50th and 60th anniversaries of D-Day (1994, 2004), V-E Day (1995, 2005), and V-J Day (1995); and he speaks frequently here and abroad. He has been a historical consultant on many films, most recently “Canada’s War” (Yap Films, 2004), and he wrote for the National Film Board’s project to put Canadian Great War film footage on-line. He writes a regular book review column for Legion magazine (2006- ) and for On Track, and was the historical consultant for the Ontario Veterans Memorial (2005-06) and the Gardiner Museum’s Battle of Britain exhibit (2006).

In 1995 he served as one of three commissioners on the Special Commission on the Restructuring of the Canadian Forces Reserves (chaired by the Rt. Hon. Brian Dickson, former Chief Justice of Canada), and in 1997, he advised the Minister of National Defence on the future of the Canadian Forces. He is a member of the Advisory Committee of the Dominion Institute, an adjunct fellow of the University of Calgary’s Centre for Military and Strategic Studies (1997- ), and was Chair of the Council for Canadian Security in the 21st Century (2001-5); he also writes a monthly column for CCS21 (Jan 2006- ). He is a Fellow (2004- ), a Board of Directors member (2004- ), and the Chair of the Advisory Council of the Canadian Defence and Foreign Affairs Institute (2001- ). He is heavily involved in Canadians for Defence and Security, a new defence advocacy group (2006- ).

Granatstein’s many scholarly and popular books include The Politics of Survival: The Conservative Party of Canada 1939-45 (1967), Peacekeeping: International Challenge and Canadian Response (1968), Canadian Foreign Policy Since 1945 (1969, 1970, 1973), Forum: Canadian Life and Letters 1920-1970 (1972), Canada's War: The Politics of the Mackenzie King Government, 1939-45 (1975, 1990), Ties that Bind: Canadian-American Relations in Wartime (1975), Broken Promises: A History of Conscription in Canada (1977, 1985), American Dollars/Canadian Prosperity (1978), A Man of Influence: Norman Robertson and Canadian Statecraft (1981), The Gouzenko Transcripts (1982), The Ottawa Men: The Civil Service Mandarins, 1935-57 (1982, 1998), Twentieth Century Canada (1983, 1986, 1989), Bloody Victory: Canadians and the D-Day Campaign (1984, 1994), The Great Brain Robbery: Canada's Universities on the Road to Ruin (1984), Sacred Trust: Brian Mulroney and the Conservative Party in Power (1985), Canada 1957-1967: The Years of Uncertainty and Innovation (1986), The Collins Dictionary of Canadian History (1986), How Britain's Weakness Forced Canada into the Arms of the United States (1989), Marching to Armageddon: Canadians and the Great War (1989), A Nation Forged in Fire: Canadians and the Second World War (1989), Pirouette: Pierre Trudeau and Canadian Foreign Policy (1990,1991) Spy Wars: Canada and Espionage from Gouzenko to Glasnost (1990, 1992), Mutual Hostages: Canadians and Japanese in World War II (1990; Japanese ed., 1994), For Better or For Worse: Canada and the United States to the 1990s (1991, 1992, 2007), War and Peacekeeping: From South Africa to the Gulf – Canada's Limited Wars (1991), English Canada Speaks Out (1991), Dictionary of Canadian Military History (1992, 1994), The Generals: The Canadian Army's Senior Commanders in the Second World War (1993, 1995, 2005), Empire to Umpire: Canadian Foreign Policy to the 1990s (1994), Victory 1945: Canadians from War to Peace (1995), The Good Fight: Canadians and World War II (1995), Yankee Go Home? Canadians and Anti-Americanism (1996, 1997), Petrified Campus: Canada’s Universities in Crisis (1997, 1998), The Canadian 100: The Hundred Most Influential Canadians of the Twentieth Century (1997, 1998), The Veterans Charter and Post-World War II Canada (1998, 1999), Who Killed Canadian History? (1998, 1999, rev. ed. forthcoming), Trudeau’s Shadow: The Life and Legacy of Pierre Trudeau (1998, 1999), Prime Ministers: Rating the Prime Ministers (1999, 2000), Our Century: The Canadian Journey (2000, 2001), Canada’s Army: Waging War and Keeping the Peace (2002, 2004), First Drafts: Eyewitness Accounts from Canada’s Past (2003, 2004), Canada and the Two World Wars (2003), The Importance of Being Less Earnest: Promoting Canada’s National Interests through Tighter Ties with the U.S. (2003), Who Killed the Canadian Military? (2004; paper ed., 2004), Hell’s Corner: An Illustrated History of Canada’s Great War (2004), Battle Lines: First Person Military Accounts from Our Past (2004), The Last Good War: An Illustrated History of Canada in the Second World War, 1939-1945 (2005), The Special Commission on the Restructuring of the Reserves, 1995: Ten Years Later (2005), The Land Newly Found: Eyewitness Accounts of the Canadian Immigration Experience (2006), and Whose War Is It? How Canada Can Survive in the Post-9/11 World (2007). He is now preparing new editions of Empire to Umpire (2007) and Who Killed Canadian History? (2007).

Granatstein is married and lives in Toronto.