Ramsay Cook

Ramsay Cook OC FRSC
Born	George Ramsay Cook (1931-11-28)28 November 1931 Alameda, Saskatchewan, Canada
Died	14 July 2016(2016-07-14) (aged 84) Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Spouse	Eleanor Cook
Academic background
Alma mater	United College Queen's University University of Toronto
Doctoral advisor	Donald Creighton
Other advisors	Arthur R. M. Lower[1]
Academic work
Discipline	History
Sub-discipline	Canadian history social history
Institutions	University of Toronto York University
Doctoral students	Michael D. Behiels[2][3] Michael Bliss[4] Michiel Horn[5] Franca Iacovetta Marcel Martel[3]

George Ramsay Cook OC FRSC (28 November 1931 – 14 July 2016) was a Canadian historian and general editor of the Dictionary of Canadian Biography. He was professor of history at the University of Toronto, 1958–1968; York University, 1969–1996; Visiting Professor of Canadian Studies, Harvard University, 1968–69; Visiting Professor, and Yale University, 1978–79 and 1997.[6] Through his championing of so-called "limited identities", Cook contributed to the rise of the New Social History, which uses "class, gender and ethnicity" as its three main categories of analysis. Cook's conception of "limited identities" was famously formulated in an article in the International Journal in 1967, Canada's centenary year, reviewing the state of contemporary scholarship on Canadian nationalism:

After six new books on the great Canadian problem — our lack of unity and identity — are we getting any nearer the source of the problem? Undoubtedly something is achieved: if nothing else one can wonder if the search is worth the effort. Certainly we should continue to try to understand ourselves; an unexamined nation is not worth living in. But it may be that the frame of reference is wrong. Perhaps instead of constantly deploring our lack of identity, we should attempt to understand and explain the regional, ethnic and class identities that we do have. It might just be that it is in these limited identities that "Canadianism" is found, and that except for our over-heated nationalist intellectuals, Canadians find this situation quite satisfactory.[7]

During his teaching career, Cook supervised the work of 39 PhD students and many prominent social historians such as Franca Iacovetta.

In 1997, the Ramsay Cook Research Scholarship was established at York University to honour his contribution to the field of history.

He publicly supported Pierre Elliott Trudeau in his successful attempt to gain the leadership of the Liberal Party of Canada in 1968.

He was married to Eleanor Cook, an English professor at the University of Toronto.[6]

Honours

Cook received the Governor General's Award for non-fiction in 1985 for The Regenerators: Social Criticism in Late Victorian English Canada. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and was made an Officer of the Order of Canada in 1986. He was awarded the Order of the Sacred Treasure by the Japanese government in 1994.[8] In 2005, Cook received the Molson Prize in Social Sciences and Humanities.

Selected works

• The Politics of John W. Dafoe and the Free Press, 1963.
• Canada and the French Canadian Question, 1966.
• The Maple Leaf Forever: Essays on Nationalism and Politics in Canada, 1971.
• Canada 1896–1921: A Nation Transformed, with Robert Craig Brown, 1975. (Part of The Canadian Centenary Series.)
• The Regenerators: Social Criticism in Late Victorian English Canada, 1985.
• Canada, Quebec and the Uses of Nationalism, 1986.
• The Teeth of Time, Remembering Pierre Elliot Trudeau, 2006.

References

1. Martel, Marcel (2017). "Ramsay Cook : l'historien engagé" [Ramsay Cook: The Militant Historian]. Études Canadiennes (in French) (83): 154. doi:10.4000/eccs.988. ISSN 2429-4667.
2. "Alumni". Graduate Program in History. Toronto: York University. Archived from the original on 7 July 2020. Retrieved 6 July 2020.
3. "A Rare Bird on Earth". Archived from the original on 7 July 2020. Retrieved 7 July 2020.
4. Terpstra, Nicholas (18 May 2017). "Remembering Professor Michael Bliss". Toronto: University of Toronto. Archived from the original on 7 July 2020. Retrieved 7 July 2020.
5. Horn, Michiel (1999). Academic Freedom in Canada: A History. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. p. ix. ISBN 978-0-8020-0726-1. Retrieved 7 July 2020.
6. "Ramsay Cook". The Globe and Mail. 19 July 2016. Archived from the original on 8 February 2017. Retrieved 19 July 2016.
7. Ramsay Cook, "Canadian Centennial Cerebrations (sic)," International Journal, Vol. 22, No. 4 (Autumn, 1967), 663.
8. "L'Harmattan web site (in French)". Archived from the original on 3 April 2012. Retrieved 10 January 2008.

Further reading

• Table ronde Ramsay Cook, special number of "Études canadiennes – Canadian Studies. Revue interdisciplinaire des études canadiennes en France" december 2018 ISSN 2429-4667 (online version) Extracts pp 147 – 175 (engl. and french)

External links

• Historian Ramsay Cook helped define modern Canada Globe and Mail obituary by John Ibbitson, 2016 July 22 (accessed 2 October 2016)
• George Ramsay Cook entry at The Canadian Encyclopedia online

Professional and academic associations
Preceded by Jean-Pierre Wallot	President of the Canadian Historical Association 1983–1984	Succeeded by Susan Mann
Awards
Preceded by Jean Hamelin	J. B. Tyrrell Historical Medal 1975	Succeeded by W. J. Eccles
Preceded by Maria Campbell	Molson Prize 2005 With: Iain Baxter&	Succeeded by Nicole Brossard
Preceded by Richard Tremblay		Succeeded by Henry Mintzberg