1. George Woodcock was a Canadian writer of political biography and history, an anarchist thinker, a philosopher, an essayist and literary critic.
15 Facts About George Woodcock
1. 2.
George Woodcock was a poet and published several volumes of travel writing.
3.
George Woodcock is most commonly known outside Canada for his book Anarchism: A History of Libertarian Ideas and Movements.
4.
George Woodcock remained an anarchist for the rest of his life, writing several books on the subject, including Anarchism, the anthology The Anarchist Reader, and biographies of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, William Godwin, Oscar Wilde and Peter Kropotkin.
5.
George Woodcock's first published work was The White Island, a collection of poetry, which was issued by Fortune Press in 1940.
6.
George Woodcock spent World War II working as a conscientious objector on a farm in Essex, and in 1949, moved to British Columbia.
7.
At Camp Angel in Oregon, a camp for conscientious objectors, George Woodcock helped found of the Untide Press, which sought to bring poetry to the public in an inexpensive but attractive format.
8.
Toward the end of his life, George Woodcock became increasingly interested in what he saw as the plight of Tibetans.
9.
George Woodcock traveled to India, studied Buddhism, became friends with the Dalai Lama and established the Tibetan Refugee Aid Society.
10.
George Woodcock died at his home in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, on January 28,1995.
11.
George Woodcock stated that "the review had abandoned its position as an independent forum", and was now "the cultural review of the British Anarchist movement".
12.
George Woodcock later wrote The Crystal Spirit, a critical study of Orwell and his work which won a Governor General's Award.
13.
George Woodcock was honoured with several awards, including a Fellowship of the Royal Society of Canada in 1968, the UBC Medal for Popular Biography in 1973 and 1976, and the Molson Prize in 1973.
14.
George Woodcock only accepted awards from his peers, refusing several offered by the state, including the Order of Canada.
15.
George Woodcock made one exception in 1994, receiving the Freedom of the City of Vancouver.