History's People

History's People

Personalities and the Past

Part of the CBC Massey Lectures Series

In History’s 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.

History’s People is about the important and complex relationship between biography and history, individuals and their times.

Part of the CBC Massey Lectures Series

In History’s 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.

History’s People is about the important and complex relationship between biography and history, individuals and their times.

Published By House of Anansi Press Inc — Sep 8, 2015
Specifications 400 pages | 5.25 in x 8 in 304 pages | 5 in x 8 in
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Excerpt
Written By

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 General’s 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. Antony’s College and a professor of international history at Oxford University and a professor of history at the University of Toronto.

Written By

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 General’s 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. Antony’s College and a professor of international history at Oxford University and a professor of history at the University of Toronto.

“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

“MacMillan deftly and engagingly shows that history is a process of capturing the minutiae of life as much as time’s epic strokes.” —Publishers Weekly, STARRED REVIEW

“She is one of those rare scholars who can write for a larger audience without becoming bogged down in academic jargon. In her latest book, MacMillan shows this talent again in five absorbing lectures about a wide range of historical actors—from Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin to Samuel Champlain and Elizabeth Simcoe—offering insight into their personal motivations and historical significance… With the federal election campaign underway, the party leaders could help themselves by heeding MacMillan’s words of wisdom.” —National Post

“MacMillan draws on an astonishing well of scholarship…The house of history is vast, and as the Massey Lectures come to a close, two voices sound a very different, and more urgent, note: the observers Harry Kessler, born in 1868, the wealthy son of a German banker, and Viktor Klemperer, born in 1881, a German-Jewish professor in Dresden. Through their diaries, Kessler and Klemperer attempt to keep hold of their particular way of observing and thinking, which is to say, their souls. MacMillan powerfully recreates the era; she brings to life not simply their personalities, but their personhood.” —Globe and Mail

“Through this series of lectures, MacMillan demonstrates in rich and provocative detail, how history is an important tool for understanding our own world - as well as the world of others.” —The History Eduation Network

“this book is an inspiring one, and the lives of the people included have lessons for all of us.” —Victoria Times Colonist

“Margaret MacMillan rightly is a darling of Canadian letters, an acclaimed historian of international stature, a superb writer and author of several award-winning bestsellers. Her talents and intellect are so formidable she can do no professional wrong -- if she writes something it is worth reading, no question. This has been true of everything she has turned her mind to, and it is true of her latest work, History's People…the stories -- in the end is what is so richly rewarding about reading History's People. If the personal stories command MacMillan's interest, it goes without saying that they will command the attention of her readers, too.” —Winnipeg Free Press

“wonderful… History’s People urges us to see the past in another way. MacMillan has provided us with a brilliantly guided tour through a dramatic and emotionally penetrating account of the human beings who by accident or design (and often through the luck of good timing) created the world we live in. She encourages us to see the human qualities, the frailties and passions of men and women who make history… Many readers of MacMillan’s book will want to give a copy to young people whose brains have been deadened by textbooks.” —National Post