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Desmond Morton (historian)

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Professor Desmond Morton

Desmond Morton, OC, Ph.D., FRSC (born 1937) is a Canadian historian who specializes in the history of the Canadian military, as well as the history of Canadian political and industrial relations.

Born in Calgary, Alberta, Morton is a graduate of the Collège Militaire Royal de St-Jean, the Royal Military College of Canada,a Rhodes Scholar, the University of Oxford (where he received his PhD), and the London School of Economics. He spent ten years in the Canadian Army prior to beginning his teaching career.

He is the son of a Brigadier General, and the grandson of General Sir William Otter.

Morton is the Hiram Mills professor of History at McGill University, as well as the past director of the McGill Institute for the Study of Canada, in Montreal, Quebec. Prior to that, he was Principal of Erindale College, University of Toronto, from 1986 to 1994.

Before beginning his teaching career, Morton served as an advisor to Tommy Douglas of the New Democratic Party and informally advised Brian Mulroney of the Progressive Conservatives. From 1964 to 1966, he served as assistant secretary of the Ontario NDP. After the success of the famous 1964 NDP Riverdale by-election, Morton wrote and published The Riverdale Story, which detailed how the party organizing and canvassing which changed the way campaigns in Canada are run.

Morton received his doctorate from the University of London. He is the author of over thirty-five books on Canada, including the popular A Short History of Canada ISBN 0-7710-6509-4.

In 1996, he was made an Officer of the Order of Canada. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. One of his well known quotes is: "For Canadians, Vimy Ridge was a nation building experience. For some, then and later, it symbolized the fact that the Great War was also Canada's war of independence..." He is also known for jokingly defining a BA as "it means that you can read and write in a professional manner".

While Morton is widely regarded as an expert in all areas of Canadian history, he specializes in Canadian military and industrial history as well as Nationalisms in Canada. He is noted as one of the few remaining historians who personally interviewed and studied veterans from the Militia sent to the North-West Rebellion of 1869.

Recently, Professor Morton announced that the 2005-2006 academic year would be his last before retirement. He will continue to serve at McGill as a Professor Emeritus.

List of Works

  1. Ministers and Generals: Politics and the Canadian Militia, 1868-1904 (1970)
  2. The Last War Drum:The North West Campaign of 1885 (1972)
  3. Mayor Howland: The Citizens' Candidate (1973)
  4. The Canadian General Sir William Otter (1974)
  5. NDP The Dream of Power. (1974)
  6. The Queen Versus Louis Riel (1974)
  7. Critical Years 1857-73 (1977)
  8. Rebellions in Canada (1980)
  9. The Supreme Penalty: Canadian Deaths by Firing Squad in the First World War (1980)
  10. Canada and War: A Military and Political History (1981)
  11. Labour in Canada (1982)
  12. A Peculiar Kind of Politics: Canada's Overseas Ministry in the First World (1982)
  13. Years of Conflict: 1911-1921 (1983)
  14. New France and War (1984)
  15. Working People (1984)
  16. The New Democrats 1961-1986: The Politics of Change (1986)
  17. Winning the Second Battle: Canadian Veterans and the Return to Civilian Life, 1915-30 (1987) (With Glenn T. Wright)
  18. Towards Tomorrow: Canada in a Changing World History (1988)
  19. Marching to Armageddon: Canadians and the Great War 1914-1919 (1989) (With J. I. Granastein)
  20. A Military History of Canada (1992)
  21. Morgentaler vs Borowski (1992)
  22. Silent Battle: Canadian Prisoners of War in Germany, 1914-1919 (1992)
  23. Shaping a Nation: A Short History of Canada's Constitution (1995)
  24. The United Nations: Its History and the Canadians Who Shaped It (1995)
  25. Our Canada: The Heritage of Her People (1996)
  26. Victory 1945: The Birth of Modern Canada (1996) (With J. I. Granastein)
  27. Wheels:The Car in Canada (1998)
  28. Who Speaks for Canada? (1998) (With Morton Weinfeld)
  29. Working People: An Illustrated History of the Canadian Labour Movement (1998)
  30. Canada: A Millennium Portrait (1999)
  31. Canada a Millennium Portrait (2000)
  32. Understanding Canadian Defense (2000)
  33. A Short History of Canada, ISBN 0-7710-6509-4,(2001)
  34. They Were So Young: Montrealers Remember WWII (2002)
  35. Understanding Canadian Defence (2003)
  36. Fight or PayTitle (2004)
  37. The Mystery of Frankenberg' S Canadian Airman (2005)
  38. When Your Number's Up: The Canadian Soldier I the 1st World War
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