Ramsay Cook

{{Use dmy dates|date=July 2020}}

{{Short description|Canadian historian (1931–2016)}}

{{Infobox academic

| name = Ramsay Cook

| honorific_suffix = {{post-nominals|country=CAN|OC|FRSC|size=100%}}

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| birth_name = George Ramsay Cook

| birth_date = {{birth date|1931|11|28|df=yes}}

| birth_place = Alameda, Saskatchewan, Canada

| death_date = {{death date and age|2016|07|14|1931|11|28|df=yes}}

| death_place = Toronto, Ontario, Canada

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| spouse = Eleanor Cook

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| alma_mater = {{ubl | United College | Queen's University | University of Toronto}}

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| doctoral_advisor = Donald Creighton

| academic_advisors = Arthur R. M. Lower{{cite journal |last=Martel |first=Marcel |author-link=Marcel Martel (historian) |year=2017 |title=Ramsay Cook : l'historien engagé |trans-title=Ramsay Cook: The Militant Historian |journal=Études Canadiennes |language=fr |issue=83 |page=154 |doi=10.4000/eccs.988 |doi-access=free |issn=2429-4667}}

| influences =

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| discipline = History

| sub_discipline = {{hlist | Canadian history | social history}}

| workplaces = {{ubl | University of Toronto | York University}}

| doctoral_students = {{flatlist|

• Michael D. Behiels{{cite web |title=Alumni |url=https://history.gradstudies.yorku.ca/alumni/ |website=Graduate Program in History |location=Toronto |publisher=York University |access-date=6 July 2020 |archive-date=7 July 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200707060949/https://history.gradstudies.yorku.ca/alumni/ |url-status=live }}{{Cite web|url=https://blackwells.co.uk/bookshop/product/A-Rare-Bird-on-Earth-by-Michael-D-Behiels-Marcel-Martel/9780195414639|title=A Rare Bird on Earth|access-date=7 July 2020|archive-date=7 July 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200707130550/https://blackwells.co.uk/bookshop/product/A-Rare-Bird-on-Earth-by-Michael-D-Behiels-Marcel-Martel/9780195414639|url-status=live}}
• Michael Bliss{{cite web |last=Terpstra |first=Nicholas |date=18 May 2017 |title=Remembering Professor Michael Bliss |url=https://www.history.utoronto.ca/news/remembering-professor-michael-bliss |location=Toronto |publisher=University of Toronto |access-date=7 July 2020 |archive-date=7 July 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200707233616/https://www.history.utoronto.ca/news/remembering-professor-michael-bliss |url-status=live }}
• Michiel Horn{{cite book |last=Horn |first=Michiel |author-link=Michiel Horn |year=1999 |title=Academic Freedom in Canada: A History |url=https://archive.org/details/academicfreedomi0000horn |url-access=registration |location=Toronto |publisher=University of Toronto Press |page=ix |isbn=978-0-8020-0726-1 |access-date=7 July 2020}}
• Franca Iacovetta
• Marcel Martel

}}

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George Ramsay Cook {{post-nominals|country=CAN|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.{{cite web | url=http://v1.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/Deaths.20160719.93377127/BDAStory/BDA/deaths | title=Ramsay Cook | newspaper=The Globe and Mail | date=July 19, 2016 | accessdate=19 July 2016 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170208141251/http://v1.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/Deaths.20160719.93377127/BDAStory/BDA/deaths | archive-date=8 February 2017 | url-status=dead }} 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:

{{quote|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.Ramsay Cook, "Canadian Centennial Cerebrations (sic)," International Journal, Vol. 22, No. 4 (Autumn, 1967), 663.}}

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.