Norman Hillmer
Distinguished Research Professor (History) -international history; Canadian foreign and defence policy; Canada and the United States; British-Canadian relations and the Commonwealth; peace operations and conflict resolution; Canadian politics; political leadership and political culture.
- B.A. (Toronto), M.A. (Toronto), Ph.D. (Cambridge)
- Email Norman Hillmer
Recent Honours and Awards
Slater Family Scholar, Max Bell School of Public Policy, McGill University, 2025
Chancellor’s Professor of History and International Affairs Emeritus, 杏吧原创 University, 2025-
Elected, Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, 2019
Senior Fellow, Bill Graham Centre for Contemporary International History, University of Toronto, 2019-
Research Achievement Award, 杏吧原创 University, 2017 (for 2018-2019)
Order of Canada, 2016
Charles P. Stacey Prize, 2015-2016
Finalist (for O. D. Skelton: A Portrait of Canadian Ambition): Canada Prize in the Humanities, 2015; Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for Political Writing, 2016; John W. Dafoe Book Prize, 2016; and Ottawa Book Award, 2016.
William Goodenough Association of Canada (Goodenough College), Benefactors鈥 Award, 2014
Visitor, School of Social Science, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, New Jersey, 2013
Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal, 2012
Select Publications, 2008-2025
鈥淪eeing Stars: Expansionist Jabs Over the Years,鈥 Literary Review of Canada, 33, 5 (June 2025): 17-19.
Editor, Canada Among Nations 2023: Twenty-First Century National Security (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2024) [with Philippe Lagass茅 and Vincent Rigby], xviii, 361.
鈥淐anadian National Security in a Dark Time,鈥 in Twenty-First Century National Security: Canada Among Nations 2023, 1-22 [with Philippe Lagass茅 and Vincent Rigby].
鈥淎lignment Without Illusions: Canada鈥檚 World, 1945-1950,鈥 in Andrew Burtch and Tim Cook, ed., Canada and the Korean War: Histories and Legacies of a Cold War Conflict (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2024), 17-30 [with Hector Mackenzie].
鈥淎fterword,鈥 in Asa McKercher and Michael D. Stevenson, ed., North of America: Canadians and the American Century, 1945-60 (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2023), 341-343.
鈥淐anada鈥檚 Diplomatic Autobiographers and the Burden of History, 1928-1984,鈥 in Greg Donaghy and P. Whitney Lackenbauer, eds., People, Politics, and Purpose: Biography and Canadian Political History (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2023), 26-47 [with Robert Bothwell].
鈥淭he Presidents and the Polls: An Inquiry into Canadian Anti-Americanism, 1963-2021,鈥 American Review of Canadian Studies, 52, 4 (2022), 381-401 [with Stephen Azzi].
鈥淩anking Prime Ministers: Canada in a Commonwealth Context,鈥 Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History 49, 1 (2021), 22鈥43 [with Stephen Azzi].
“Growing Up Autonomous: Canada and Britain through the First World War and into the Peace,鈥 in Tim Cook and J. L. Granatstein, eds., Canada 1919: A Country Shaped By War (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2020), 234-47.
鈥淐elebrating Greg Donaghy,鈥 International Journal, 75, 4 (2020), 464-470 [with Robert Bothwell and John English].
Editor, Justin Trudeau and Canadian Foreign Policy: Canada Among Nations 2017 (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018), xv, 310 [with Philippe Lagass茅].
鈥淭he Age of Trudeau and Trump,鈥 in Justin Trudeau and Canadian Foreign Policy, 1-16 [with Philippe Lagass茅].
鈥淒ifferent Leader, Different Paths: Diefenbaker and the British, 1957-1963,鈥 in Janice Cavell and Ryan M. Touhey, eds., Reassessing the Rogue Tory: Canadian Foreign Relations in the Diefenbaker Era (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2018), 45-64.
鈥淧earson and Environmental Diplomacy,鈥 in Asa McKercher and Galen Roger Perras, eds., Mike鈥檚 World: Lester B. Pearson and Canadian External Affairs (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2017), 320-41 [with Daniel Macfarlane and Michael W. Manulak].
鈥淚ntolerant Allies: Canada and the George W. Bush Administration, 2001-2005,鈥 Diplomacy & Statecraft, 27, 4 (2016), 726-45 [with Stephen Azzi].
鈥淭he Prime Minister of the Few,鈥 in Adam Chapnick and Christopher Kukucha, eds., The Harper Era in Canadian Foreign Policy: Parliament, Politics, and Canada鈥檚 Global Posture (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2016), 258-68.
鈥淧arliament Will Decide: An Interplay of Politics and Principle,鈥 International Journal, 71, 2 (2016), 328鈥37 [with Philippe Lagass茅].
O. D. Skelton: A Portrait of Canadian Ambition (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2015), xii, 424.
Editor, O. D. Skelton: The Work of the World, 1923-1941 (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen鈥檚 University Press and The Champlain Society; both editions, 2013), xx, 55 page introduction, 517 pp.
鈥淓valuating Prime Ministerial Leadership in Canada: The Results of an Expert Survey,鈥 Canadian Political Science Review, 7, 1 (2013), 13-23 [with Stephen Azzi].
鈥淓valuating Prime-Ministerial Performance: The Canadian Experience鈥, in Paul Strangio, Paul 鈥榯 Hart, and James Walter, eds., Understanding Prime-Ministerial Performance: Comparative Perspectives (London: Oxford University Press, 2012), 242-63 [with Stephen Azzi].
鈥淣ational Independence and the National Interest: O. D. Skelton鈥檚 Department of External Affairs in the 1920s,鈥 in Greg Donaghy and Michael K. Carroll, eds., In the National Interest: Canadian Foreign Policy and the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, 1909-2009 (Calgary: University of Calgary Press, 2011), 11-26.
鈥淭he Canadian War Museum and the Military Identity of an Unmilitary People,鈥 Canadian Military History, XIX, 3 (Summer 2010), 19-26.
鈥淥. D. Skelton: Innovating for Independence,鈥 in Greg Donaghy and Kim Richard Nossal, eds., Architects and Innovators: Building the Department of External Affairs and International Trade, 1909-2009/ Le d茅veloppement du minist猫re des Affaires 茅trang猫res et du Commerce international, de 1909 脿 2009 (Montreal and Kingston: School of Policy Studies, Queen鈥檚 University/ McGill-Queen鈥檚 University Press, 2009), 59-73.
Canada鈥檚 International Policies: Agendas, Alternatives, and Politics (Don Mills, Ontario: Oxford University Press, 2008) [with Brian W. Tomlin and Fen Osler Hampson], vi, 432.
Completed Graduate Supervisions, 2012-2024
Kieran Alen Yazar McClelland, 鈥淭hird Place in the Space Race: Securitizing Rhetoric, the Logic of Threat, and the Securitization of the Canadian Civil Space Program,鈥 Ph.D., Political Science, 2024 (Dissertation Committee).
Glenn Philip, 鈥淎toms for Peace: Canada, India, and the Peaceful Uses of Atomic Energy, 1953-1956,鈥 M. A. Research Essay, History 2024.
Ren茅e Lauzon-Cherniak, 鈥溾業f I Had Thousands of Victoria Crosses鈥: Stretcher Bearer Training in the Canadian Army Medical Corps in the First World War,鈥 M. A. Thesis, History, 2024.
Sarah Catherine Catterall, 鈥淭he Kandahar Cenotaph, Commemoration, and the Politics of Place,鈥 M. A. Research Essay, History, 2022.
Ann Walton, 鈥淎 Family Home for Toronto鈥檚 Aged Poor: The Social Service Mission of Strachan House, 1925-1958,鈥 Ph.D., History, 2022.
Christian McGregor, 鈥溾楩or Good or for Evil鈥: The Early Atomic Age in 惭补肠濒别补苍鈥檚, Saturday Night, Life, and The Saturday Evening Post, 1945-1950,鈥 M. A. Thesis, History, 2022.
Susan R. Hagborg Wildey, 鈥淭he South African Information Service and English-Canadian Journalism, 1949-1960,” M. A. Thesis, History, 2021.
Michael Cesare Chiarello, 鈥淭he Course and Canon of Left Nationalism in English Canada, 1968-1979,鈥 Ph.D., History, 2020.
Camus Clowater-Eriksson, 鈥淚ntegration: Women in the Canadian Air Force, An Audio Documentary,鈥 M. A. Research Essay, History, 2020.
Nancy Carvell, 鈥淎 People Apart: New Brunswick Acadians, Conscription, and the Second World War,鈥 M. A. Thesis, History, 2019.
Angus McCabe, 鈥淐anada鈥檚 Response to the 1968 Soviet Invasion of Czechoslovakia: An Assessment of the Trudeau Government鈥檚 First International Crisis,鈥 M. A. Thesis, History, 2019.
Philip Michael Lamancusa, 鈥淭he Canadian War Museum鈥檚 1812: A Question of Perspective,鈥 M. A. Thesis, History, 2019.
Ian Wereley, 鈥淚magining the Age of Oil: Case Studies in British Petrocultures, 1865-1935,鈥 Ph.D., History, 2018 (Dissertation Committee).
Claude LeBlanc, 鈥淢aurice A. Pope: A Study in Military Leadership,鈥 Ph.D., War Studies, The Royal Military College of Canada, 2018.
Mallory Pierce, 鈥淲hat a Country!鈥: English-Canadian Newspapers, Humanitarian Exceptionalism, and the Hungarian Revolution of 1956,鈥 M. A. Research Essay, History, 2018.
Karly Deanna Hurlock, 鈥淔or Peaceful Purposes: Indo-Canadian Relations, Development Assistance, and the Bomb in the 1970s,鈥 M. A. Research Essay, History, 2018.
Larysa Lubka-Lewyckyj, 鈥淎 Delicate Balance (Although Not Always): 惭补肠濒别补苍鈥檚 Views the United States, 1958-1963,鈥 M. A. Research Essay, History, 2018.
Sarah Hogenbirk, 鈥淲omen Inside the Canadian Military, 1938-1966,鈥 Ph.D., History, 2017
Nicole Marion, 鈥淐anada鈥檚 Disarmers: The Complicated Struggle Against Nuclear Weapons, 1959-1963,鈥 Ph.D., History, 2017.
Kurtis W. Montgomery, 鈥Saturday Night and the New Yorking of Toronto in 1897,鈥 M. A. Research Essay, History, 2017.
Ian Leonard Weatherall, 鈥淐anada鈥檚 Defence Policies, 1987-1993: NATO, Operational Viability, and the Good Ally,鈥 M. A. Thesis, History, 2017.
Alan J. Stephenson, 鈥淐anadian National Security Culture: Explaining Post 9/11 Canadian National Security Policy Outcomes,鈥 Ph.D., Political Science, 2016 (Dissertation Committee).
John Valentine, 鈥淔ootball, Nationalism, and Protectionism: The Federal Defence of the Canadian Football League,鈥 Ph.D., Canadian Studies, 2016 (Dissertation Committee).
Paige Mcdonald, 鈥淚f Japan Should Attack: Perceptions of Fear and Threat in British Columbia鈥檚 Newspapers, 1941-1943,鈥 M. A. Thesis, History, 2016.
Andrew Sopko, 鈥淎n (Im)Balance of Expectations: Civil Defence in Ottawa, 1951-1962.鈥 M. A. Thesis, History, 2015.
Richard Newport, 鈥淭he Outsider: Elizabeth P. MacCallum, the Canadian Department of External Affairs, and the Palestine Mandate to 1947,鈥 Ph.D., History, 2014.
Meghan Stewart, 鈥淧eacekeeping and the Canadian War Museum: Complexity, Controversy, and Challenging Mythology,鈥 M. A. Research Essay, History, 2014.
Sarah Dougherty, 鈥淓stablishing Meaning: The Founding Stories of the Stratford Shakespearean Festival,鈥 M. A. Research Essay, History, 2014.
David Tough, 鈥淭he Rhetoric of Dominion Income Taxation and the Modern Political Imaginary in Canada, 1910-1945,鈥 Ph.D., History, 2013 (Dissertation Committee).
Anthony P. Michel, 鈥淭he Nile Voyageurs: Recognizing Canada鈥檚 Role in the Empire, 1884-1885,鈥 Ph.D., History, 2012.
Michel Legault, 鈥淟owered, Shipped, and Fastened: Private Grief and the Public Sphere in Canada鈥檚 Afghanistan War,鈥 M. A. Thesis, History, 2012.
Malcolm E. O. Ferguson, 鈥淐anada鈥檚 Response: The Making and Remaking of the Canadian War Memorial,鈥 M. A. Thesis, History, 2012.