Michael H. Kater (b.1937) has studied history, sociology and music at the universities of Toronto, Munich and Heidelberg. Since 1967, he has taught at York University, Toronto, from 1991 to the present as Distinguished Research Professor of History. Professor Kater has served as Visiting Hannah Professor of the History of Medicine both at McMaster University in Hamilton and at the University of Toronto. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, a Guggenheim Fellow, a Canada Council Senior Killam Fellow, and the recipient of the Konrad Adenauer Research Prize of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. As his main research interest is the culture, society and politics of modern Germany, he is the author of many books, several of them prize-winning. He has been a frequent guest at international conferences and lectured widely at universities and academic functions around the world.