History’s People: Personalities and the Past

408 Pages·2016·10.589 MB·English

by  Margaret MacMillan

PERSONALITIES AND THE PAST
THE BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF PARIS 1919 AND THE WAR THAT ENDED PEACE
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*24-95
In History's People internationally
acclaimed historian Margaret MacAtillan
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. B
o
She looks at the concept of leadership
s
through Bismarck and the unification of t
o
P
Germany; William Lyon MacKenzie King and nr
o
the preservation of the Canadian Federation; Pp
e
u
Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the bringing r
bty
of a unified United States into the Second l
io
cf
World War. She also notes how leaders can t
Lh
make huge and often destructive mistakes, as
e
i
b
in the cases of Hitler, Stalin, and Thatcher.
r
Richard Nixon and Samuel de Champlain are a
r
y
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 man¬
age 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 survivor of the
Holocaust, who kept the notes and diaries that
bring the past to life.
History's People is about the imp :; ir and
complex relationship between bioh and
history, individuals and their time
No longer the property of the
Boston Public Library.
Sale of this material benefits the Library.
*
*
THE MASSEY LECTURES SERIES
The Massey Lectures are co-sponsored by cbc Radio, House
of Anansi Press, and Massey College in the University
of Toronto. The series was created in honour of the Right
Honourable Vincent Massey, former Governor General of
Canada, and was inaugurated in 1961 to provide a forum
on radio where major contemporary thinkers could address
important issues of our time.
This book comprises the 2015 Massey Lectures, "History's
People: Personalities and the Past," broadcast in November
2015 as part of cbc Radio's Ideas series. The producer of
the series was Philip Coulter; the executive producer was
Greg Kelly.
MARGARET MACMILLAN
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,
a professor of international history at Oxford University,
and a professor of history at the University of Toronto.
ALSO BY THE AUTHOR
Women of the Raj: The Mothers, Wives, and
Daughters of the British Empire in India
Paris
X9X9:
Six Months That Changed the World
Nixon in China:
The Week That Changed the World
The Uses and Abuses of History
Extraordinary Canadians:
Stephen Leacock
The War That Ended Peace:
The Road to 1914
HISTORY’S PEOPLE
Personalities and the Past
MARGARET MACMILLAN
ANANSI
Copyright © 2015 Margaret MacMillan
and Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
Published in Canada in 2015 and the USA in 2015
by House of Anansi Press Inc.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or
transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including
photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system,
without permission in writing from the publisher.
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As part of our efforts, the interior of this book is printed on paper that
contains 100% post-consumer recycled fibres, is acid-free, and is processed
chlorine-free.
19 18 17 16 15 12345
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
MacMillan, Margaret, 1943-, author
History's people : personalities and the past / Margaret MacMillan.
(CBC Massey lectures)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Issued in print and electronic formats.
ISBN 978-1-4870-0005-9 (bound). — ISBN 978-1-4870-0007-3 (html)
1. Biography. 2. World history. I. Title. II. Series: CBC Massey
lectures series
CT105.M33 2015 920.02 C2015-904725-0
C2015-904726-9
Library of Congress Control Number: 2015944830
Jacket design: Alysia Shewchuk
Text design: Ingrid Paulson
Typesetting: Alysia Shewchuk
Canada Council Conseil des Arts
for the Arts du Canada
We acknowledge for their financial support of our publishing program
the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council, and the Government of
Canada through the Canada Book Fund.
Printed and bound in Canada
4S
MIX
Paper from
responsible sources
FSC
FSC® C016245
www.fsc.org
To my students at the universities ofRyerson,
Toronto, and Oxford, who taught me how to
explain history.