History's People: Personalities and the Past - Hardcover

Margaret MacMillan

3.69

851 ratings by Goodreads

9781781255124: History's People: Personalities and the Past

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1781255121 ISBN 13: 9781781255124

Publisher: Profile Books, 2016

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What difference do individuals make to history? Are we all swept up in the great forces like industrialisation or globalisation that change the world? Clearly not: real people-leaders in particular-and the decisions that they make change our lives irrevocably, whether in deciding to go to war or not, decisive tactical choices made in the heat of battle or changing the economic fortunes of countries.

So if people-explorers, rulers, politicians, campaigners-make a difference in history, what is the role of personality? What difference did, for example, Nixon, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Montaigne or Stalin make? And what about less visible but influential people such as Edith Durham in the early twentieth century in Eastern Europe or Fanny Parks in nineteenth century India?

Is it possible to find or discern patterns in different types of personality-tyranny, risk-taking, curiosity, reluctance to act? This pithy book interrogates the past to ask very big questions about the role of individuals and their behaviour. It really matters: the personalities of the powerful can affect-for better or worse-millions of people and the future of countries. Like all the best history, this book colours the way you see not only the past but the present.

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Review:

Praise for The War that Ended Peace:

'Splendidly well written - fluent, engaging, well-paced and, despite the grim subject, often entertaining

(Richard Overy New Statesman)

Few historians have better credentials to write about the origins of the First World War than the Oxford scholar Margaret MacMillan...with its lovely elegant style, keen eye for human foibles and impeccable attention to detail, this is one of the most enjoyably readable books of the year (Dominic Sandbrook Sunday Times)

A masterful explanation of the complex forces that brought the Edwardian world crashing down. Utterly riveting, deeply moving, and impeccably researched, MacMillan's latest opus will become the definitive account of old Europe's final years (Amanda Foreman)

Her enthusiasm ... really shines through. (Financial Times)

Book Description:

New from the author of The War that Ended Peace: vivid accounts of the men and women who shaped history

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