Ed Whitcomb was born in Manitoba in 1942 and grew up in Oak Lake, a small town 200 km west of Winnipeg. He wrote his first history essay in Grade 8, defending Louis Riel, and went on to win his first history prize in grade 9. He graduated from the University of Manitoba (Brandon College) in 1964 with silver medals in History and Economics, the Brandon College Faculty Prize and the Honour Society Award. After M.A. studies at the University of Manitoba, he completed a Ph.D. in French history at the University of London, England, in 1970. He published his doctoral dissertation as Napoleon’s Diplomatic Service, with Duke University Press, in 1979.
Dr. Whitcomb began teaching European History at St. Francis Xavier University in 1969. He was on sabbatical in Paris in 1972-73 and taught at Concordia University in Montreal from 1973 to 1975. After teaching European History at the university level for six years, he joined the Canadian Foreign Service in 1975. Over the course of his diplomatic career, he specialized in Asia, with postings in Thailand, Indonesia and India, with a focus on political, security and economic issues, including, civil wars, human rights, authoritarian regimes, religious and ethnic minorities and strife, insurrections, terrorism, political instability, and economic growth and reform. From 1993-1996 and 2000-2008, he was senior political, economic, strategic, and security analyst for South Asia in the Privy Council Office’s Intelligence Analysis Secretariat. He retired from the Canadian government in 2007.
From the outset of his diplomatic career, Dr. Whitcomb also pursued a private interest in promoting Canadian history and culture. He began by publishing a short history of Manitoba in 1982, and followed up by publishing short histories of all ten Canadian provinces, as well as the northern territories. He then published monographs on the history of Canadian federalism and on the relations between the Indigenous in Canada and the non-Indigenous. A musician by training and hobby, he also published three books of Canadian folk music, with a special emphasis on Canadian fiddle music. The provincial history books document abuse of democracy and human rights, the manipulation of votes to force provinces to join Confederation, the rigging of elections, and other suppression of religious and language rights, as well as human rights abuses. The history of federalism, entitled Rivals for Power: Ottawa and the Provinces, the contentious history of the Canadian federation, was published by Lorimer in 2017. It explains in detail that Ottawa has never followed the rule of law (British North America Act) in its dealings with the provinces. His other monograph, entitled Understanding First Nations: The Legacy of Canadian Colonialism, makes the same point for the Canadian government's dealings with Indigenous Canadians. In 2005 he established a fully-integrated publishing company, which operates at a profit without subsidies (https://www.fromseatoseaenterprises.com). Over 40,000 copies of his books have been sold, and thousands more have been donated to libraries, schools, politicians and others. He has also been an inveterate letter-writer and article-writer to newspapers, politicians, journalists and others since 1960.
Dr. Whitcomb plays fiddle, guitar, bass and piano, and he has played in bands since the 1950s (including his own family band). His Jack Russell terriers are named Napoleon and Josephine. He has received numerous awards and medals, and, fifty years after his graduation, his name was added to the Brandon University Wall of Fame. He is married to Kai and has two daughters, Denise and Diana.