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History General

The Uses and Abuses of History

by (author) Margaret MacMillan

Publisher
Penguin Group Canada
Initial publish date
Apr 2008
Category
General
  • Hardback

    ISBN
    9780670066803
    Publish Date
    Apr 2008
    List Price
    $30
  • Paperback / softback

    ISBN
    9780143054788
    Publish Date
    Mar 2009
    List Price
    $16.00

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Description

History is useful when it is used properly: to understand why we and those we must deal with think and react in certain ways. It can offer examples to inform our decisions and guesses about the consequences of our actions. But we should be wary of looking to history for dogmatic lessons.We should distrust those who abuse history when they call on it to justify unreasonable claims to land, for example, or restitution. MacMillan illustrates how dangerous history can be in the hands of nationalistic or religious or ethnic leaders who use it to foster a sense of grievance and a desire for revenge.


 

About the author

MARGARET MacMILLAN is the renowned author of Women Of The Raj, Stephen Leacock (Extraordinary Canadians series), and the international bestsellers Nixon In China and Paris 1919: Six Months That Changed the World, which won the 2003 Governor General’s Award and the 2002 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 at Oxford University.

Margaret MacMillan's profile page

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