John Herd Thompson

John Herd Thompson (1946 – 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. He co-authored the book Canada 1922-1939: Decades of Discord along with Allen Seager. The book was a finalist for the best non-fiction book in the 1985 Governor General's Award for English-language non-fiction.