John Herd Thompson

{{Short description|Canadian historian (1946–2019)}}

John Herd Thompson (1946{{snd}}July 12, 2019) was a Canadian historian. A leading historian of Canada, Thompson taught North American history at a variety of universities, including Simon Fraser University, McGill University, and Duke University during a 40-year teaching career. After retiring from Duke in 2012, he moved to British Columbia. He died from lung cancer in July 2019.

Thompson was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba and earned a Ph. D. from Queen’s University in 1975.{{cite web |title=Professor Emeritus John Herd Thompson Dies at Age 72 |url=https://today.duke.edu/2019/07/professor-emeritus-john-herd-thompson-dies-age-72 |website=today.duke.edu |date=22 July 2019 |language=en}} He co-authored the book Canada 1922-1939: Decades of Discord along with Allen Seager.{{cite web |url=https://www.penguinrandomhouse.ca/books/178242/canada-1922-1939-by-john-herd-thompson/9780771003493 |last1=Thompson |first1=John |last2=Seager |first2=Allen |title=Canada 1922-1939: Decades of Discord |publisher=Penguin Random House Canada |access-date=June 30, 2021}} The book was a finalist for the best non-fiction book in the 1985 Governor General's Award for English-language non-fiction.{{cite web |title=Past GGBooks winners and finalists |url=https://ggbooks.ca/past-winners-and-finalists |website=Governor General's Literary Awards |language=en}}