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History's People

Personalities and the Past
Jun 12, 2017LenRudner rated this title 3 out of 5 stars
History’s People is adapted from lectures that Margaret Macmillan gave as part of the Massey Series in 2015. This likely explains why the content is a little thinner than in some of her other work (notably Paris 1919 and The War that Ended Peace). That said, MacMillan is an eminently readable historian. The subject of her lectures is the role that extraordinary individuals can play in shaping their times – and in some cases the very flow of history. She notes that “if history is a feast, the savour comes from its people.” Her fascination with the individual is evident in her deeper works as she describes in various places the personalities whose hands were on the levers of history (My favourite is a description of Lord Balfour: “his smile was like moonlight on a tombstone) or the role that chance plays in events large and small. If the Archduke’s chauffeur had not taken a wrong turn, would Gavrilo Princip have had a second chance to assassinate him? What would have happened if Hitler had died in the trenches of World War I or if Churchill had been fatally injured when he was struck by a car in New York in 1931 or if Stalin had died on the operating table in 1921 when his appendix was removed. History may indeed be a great flowing river but its course may be altered by circumstance and by the man or woman who is necessary but not sufficient.