View source for Biography:Norman Cantor

{{Short description|Canadian-American historian}}
{{Infobox writer
| name             = Norman F. Cantor
| image            = 
| caption          = 
| birth_date       = November 19, 1929
| birth_place      = Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
| death_date       = {{Death date and age|2004|9|18|1929|11|19|df=y}}
| death_place      = Miami, Florida, U.S.
| occupation       = Historian, essayist, [[Social:Teacher|teacher]]
| nationality      = Canadian
| alma_mater       = [[Organization:University of Manitoba|University of Manitoba]] (BA)<br>[[Organization:Oriel College, Oxford|Oriel College, Oxford]]<br>[[Organization:Princeton University|Princeton University]] (MA, PhD)
| spouse           = Mindy Mozart (m. 1957)
| children         = Howard Cantor, Judy Cantor
}}

'''Norman Frank Cantor''' (November 19, 1929 – September 18, 2004)<ref name=nyt>{{cite news|title=Norman F. Cantor, 74, a Noted Medievalist, Is Dead|date=September 21, 2004|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/21/obituaries/norman-f-cantor-74-a-noted-medievalist-is-dead.html|author=Saxon, Wolfgang|work=The New York Times |access-date=December 19, 2019}}</ref> was a Canadian-American medievalist.  Known for his accessible writing and engaging narrative style, Cantor's books were among the most widely read treatments of medieval history in English. He estimated that his textbook ''The Civilization of the Middle Ages'', first published in 1963, had a million copies in circulation.<ref>{{cite news|author=Verduin, Kathleen|title=Inventing Norman Cantor: Confessions of a Medievalist|url=http://www.perspicuitas.uni-essen.de/rezens/rez_verduin.pdf|access-date=December 19, 2019|publisher=Perspicuitas|date=October 2, 2003}}</ref>

==Life==
Born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada to a Jewish family, Cantor received a Bachelor of Arts degree at the [[Organization:University of Manitoba|University of Manitoba]] in 1951. He moved to the United States to obtain an M.A. degree (1953) from [[Organization:Princeton University|Princeton University]], then spent a year as a Rhodes Scholar at [[Organization:Oriel College, Oxford|Oriel College, Oxford]]. He returned to Princeton and received his [[Social:Doctor of Philosophy|Ph.D.]] in 1957 under the direction of eminent medievalist Joseph R. Strayer. He also began his teaching career at Princeton.<ref name=nyt/>

After teaching at Princeton, Cantor became a professor at [[Organization:Columbia University|Columbia University]] from 1960 to 1966. He was a Leff professor at [[Organization:Brandeis University|Brandeis University]] until 1970 and then was at [[Organization:Binghamton University|Binghamton University]] until 1976, when he took a position at [[Organization:University of Illinois at Chicago|University of Illinois at Chicago]] for two years. He then went on to [[Organization:New York University|New York University]] (NYU), where he served as Dean of NYU's College of Arts & Sciences, as well as a professor of history, sociology and comparative literature.<ref name=nyt/> After a brief stint as Fulbright Professor at the [[Organization:Tel Aviv University|Tel Aviv University]] History Department (1987–88), he returned to NYU where he taught as a professor emeritus until his retirement in 1999, at which time he devoted himself to working as a full-time writer.<ref name=jvl>{{cite web|url=https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/cantor-norman-frank|title=Norman Frank Cantor|publisher=Jewish Virtual Library|access-date=December 19, 2019}}</ref>

Although his early work focused on English religious and intellectual history, Cantor's later scholarly interests were diverse, and he found more success writing for a popular audience than he did engaging in more narrowly focused original research. He did publish one [[Monograph|monograph]] study, based on his graduate thesis, ''Church, kingship, and lay investiture in England, 1089-1135'',<ref name=jvl/> which appeared in 1958 and remains an important contribution to the topic of church-state relations in medieval England. Throughout his career, however, Cantor preferred to write on the broad contours of Western history, and on the history of academic medieval studies in Europe and North America, in particular the lives and careers of eminent medievalists. His books generally received mixed reviews in academic journals, but were often popular bestsellers, buoyed by Cantor's fluid, often colloquial, writing style and his lively critiques of persons and ideas both past and present.

Cantor was intellectually conservative and expressed deep skepticism about what he saw as methodological fads, particularly [[Philosophy:Marxism|Marxism]] and [[Philosophy:Postmodernism|postmodernism]], but he also argued for greater inclusion of women and minorities in traditional historical narratives. In his books ''Inventing the Middle Ages'' (1991) and ''Inventing Norman Cantor'' (2002), he reflected on his strained relationship over the years with other historians and with academia in general.<ref>{{cite news|author=Lipkin, Michael|title=When Emperors Are No More|url=http://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2016/06/15/when-emperors-are-no-more/|access-date=December 19, 2019|publisher=The Paris Review|date=June 15, 2016}}</ref>

Upon retirement in 1999, Cantor moved to Miami, Florida, where he continued to work on several books up to the time of his death, including the New York Times bestseller ''In the Wake of the Plague'' (2001). He was also editor of ''Encyclopedia of the Middle Ages'' (1999).<ref name=nyt/>

He died of a heart failure in Miami at the age of 74.<ref name=nyt/>

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==External links==
*[http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20041008/news_1m8cantor.html New York Times News Service obituary]
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20070318192038/http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/10/01/db0103.xml&sSheet=/portal/2004/10/01/ixportal.html The Telegraph newspaper, 1 October 2004 Norman Cantor ]
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20061021223149/http://www.lutterworth.com/lp/titles/inventma.htm About ''Inventing the Middle Ages'']
* [http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/1992/may/14/the-cantorbury-tales/?pagination=false Review of ''Inventing the Middle Ages ''in New York Review of Books]


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[[Category:Historiographers]]

{{Sourceattribution|Norman Cantor}}