Born in Chicago of Swedish descent, Ekman was multi-lingual, a meticulous historian, and an advocate of the benefits of a broad education in the history of Western Civilisation.
He was schooled in Glendale, California, after which he attended Jonathan Edwards College[1] at Yale University from where he received his A.B.
His main period of interest was from the Reformation to the Thirty Years' War[1] and he was a regular contributor to The Journal of Modern History and the yearbooks of the American Swedish Historical Museum in the 1960s.
He was an advocate of the benefits of a broad education in the history of Western Civilisation, which he taught at Riverside,[1] and a meticulous historian much interested in sources and historiography, contributing an article on "The Teaching of Scandinavian History in the United States" to Scandinavian Studies in 1965 in which he surveyed scholars, institutions,[3] and the availability of sources on Scandinavia in the United States and noted that some important publications were only available at the Library of Congress or the New York Public Library.
[4] He was a regular reviewer in scholarly journals and contributed to The Encyclopedia Americana on Gustaf VI Adolf of Sweden.