Synopses & Reviews
The past is a great canvas and across it sweep the currents that move human affairs. Economic changes such as industrialization or capitalism, scientific and technological discoveries such as steam power or computers, or ideas such as liberalism or fascism, are the engines of history. Yet in every era individuals stand out from the crowds. Internationally acclaimed historian Margaret MacMillan gives her own selection of those historical figures, women and men, who have fascinated her and explains the reasons why.
She looks at the powerful, hereditary rulers, elected leaders, or generals, whose personalities and decisions made a difference in history, as well the writers, explorers, or thinkers whose voices speak to us across the centuries and whose impact may be more muted. She situates her subjects in their times and explains where they reflected prevailing values and where, like Luther or Marx, they challenged and changed them. Some, like Hitler, Mao, or Stalin, took a particular current in their own times and rode it to power with huge consequences. Using examples drawn from several centuries she examines specific characteristics and emotions, including curiosity, daring, ambition, vision, stubbornness, and integrity, showing how these qualities made a difference.
Review
"[O]ne of our eras most talented historians.” — Madeleine Albright, former Secretary of State
Review
"A concise, educational overview of some of the men and women who have carved out spots in the annals of history and why they should be remembered. Fans of the author are in for another treat." -- Kirkus
Synopsis
In Historys People internationally acclaimed historian Margaret MacMillan gives her own personal selection of figures of the past, women and men, some famous and some little-known, who stand out for her. Some have changed the course of history and even directed the currents of their times. Others are memorable for being risk-takers, adventurers, or observers. She looks at the concept of leadership through Bismarck and the unification of Germany; William Lyon MacKenzie King and the preservation of the Canadian Federation; Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the bringing of a unified United States into the Second World War. She also notes how leaders can make huge and often destructive mistakes, as in the cases of Hitler, Stalin, and Thatcher. Richard Nixon and Samuel de Champlain are examples of daring risk-takers who stubbornly went their own ways, often in defiance of their own societies. Then there are the dreamers, explorers, and adventurers, individuals like Fanny Parkes and Elizabeth Simcoe who manage to defy or ignore the constraints of their own societies. Finally, there are the observers, such as Babur, the first Mughal emperor of India, and Victor Klemperer, a Holocaust survivor, who kept the notes and diaries that bring the past to life.
About the Author
MARGARET MACMILLAN is the author of the international bestsellers
The War that Ended Peace,
Nixon in China and
Paris 1919: Six Months That Changed the World, which won the Governor Generals Literary Award and the Samuel Johnson Prize. She is also the author of
The Uses and Abuses of History. The past provost of Trinity College at the University of Toronto, she is now the warden of St. Antonys College and a professor of international history at Oxford University and a professor of history at the University of Toronto.