The Uses and Abuses of History

by Margaret MacMillan

History is useful when it is used 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.
 

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Politics, Philosophy, Essays, World History, Historical

208 pages, Hardcover

First published April 15, 2008

About the author

Margaret Olwen MacMillan OC D.Phil. (born 1943) is a historian and professor at Oxford University where she is Warden of St. Antony's College. She is former provost of Trinity College and professor of history at the University of Toronto. A well-respected expert on history and current affairs, MacMillan is a frequent commentator in the media.

-Wikipedia

Reviews

[Bill Kerwin · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an interesting collection of lectures that discuss the way in which the knowledge of history--or the lack of it--may affect our ways of acting in the present. I particularly liked McMillan's explanation of why eyewitnesses have no particular advantage--let alone a precedence--in historical interpretation, and her exploration of the importance of particular parochial versions of history in the forming of nations and the fomenting of nationalistic attitudes.

Each of her arguments is illuminated by interesting historical anecdotes. My favorite: how the Carter administration in 1979 became indignant over the placing of Soviet troops in Cuba, not realizing that these troops had never been withdrawn after the missile crisis in 1962 and had remained in Cuba all that time.

[Paul Bryant · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well, 170 pages full of good examples of the fact that history is very FRAUGHT - you can't say a thing without someone being mortally offended. Just like most family get-togethers! MM says that "professional historians have largely been abandoning the field to amateurs" - that's a bold thing to say. Does she name these phonies? No. She says that the professionals have been dragged into inscrutable theorising, in the same way the semioticians and the post-modernists dragged English literature into the coded darkness of structuralism back in the swingin' 80s. "Historians long to sound like their peers in social sciences" - poor kids. (Cheer up Cinders, you shall go to the post-modernist ball!) So anyway because of this introspection some bad boys have run off with history and broken some windows with it, and picked locks with it, and frightened the horses in general. And they won't give it back. They stand there on the other side of the road and make sweeping generalisations and racist assumptions and they gather round them smaller boys and tell them nationalist myths.

As an example of this, consider the exhibit in Canada's national War Museum. There was a plaque describing the Allied carpet-bombing campaign of 1942 in which German cities and towns were targeted. The plaque said "The value and morality of the strategic bombing offensive against Germany remains bitterly contested." This was translated by the Canadian press like this : "Hey, guys, especially you veterans, did you know that the War Museum is going round saying that the bombing campaign was immoral and ineffective?" So, Airforce veterans were rounded up for comment. They were mortally offended. Historians received emails which said "The veterans have done more for our country and way of life than you ever will. Since they were there, and you were not, it stands to reason they should have the final say as to whether this plaque is fair or not."
MM remarks plaintively :

The idea that those who actually took part in great events or lived through particular times have a superior understanding to those who come later is a deeply-held yet wrong-headed one.

Absolutely.
Every nation has its myths and dynamite won't dispel them. Britain believes its Empire benevolently bestowed the pacific values of democracy and enlightenment to the benighted areas of the globe, that the natives hosanna'd our arrival and wept at our departure. Americans believe their nation was conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. (It might be so dedicated now but I can't see that it was back then.) Israelis appear to believe that the Palestinians voluntarily fled to Jordan and Lebanon in 1948. It's unfair to mention these examples because everyone's at it. Who owns history? The newspapers, and the shoutier types of politicians, would be my guess. Certainly not the historians, who have this horrible tedious habit of pointing out that it was never as simple as what you thought, it was always much more complicated, compromised and disagreeable. They're never going to get thanked for that.

[Sense of History]

Rating 2.5 stars. A collection of lectures given in 2007. Does not contain much new insights, and at one time MacMillan is very one sided in pleading for a purely academic study of history. But the final chapters are interesting, with an analysis of how examples from the past, such as the trauma of Munich 1938, afterwards were used and abused in a wide variety of ways.

And of course I can surely subscribe to the final conclusion: "If the study of history does nothing more than teach us humility, scepticism and awareness of ourselves, then it has done something useful. We must continue to examine our own assumptions and those of others and ask, where's the evidence? Or, is there another explanation? We should be wary of grand claims in history's name or those to have uncovered the truth once and for all. In the end, my only advice is use it, enjoy it, but always handle history with care."

All true, but still, a little voice inside me says that the study of history can have broader ambitions than humility, scepticism and awareness of ourselves. After all, that's what this GR-account "Sense-of-History" is all about. Maybe it's just an illusion, but then again, I cherish it.

[Riku Sayuj · Rating 3 out of 5]

Humility is one of the most useful lessons that the past can provide the present.

As John Carey, the distinguished British man of letters, puts it, “One of history’s most useful tasks is to bring home to us how keenly, honestly and painfully, past generations pursued aims that now seem to us wrong or disgraceful.”

If the study of history does nothing more than teach us humility and scepticism, then it has done something useful. We must continue to examine our own assumptions and those of others and ask, where’s the evidence? Or, is there another explanation? We should be wary of grand claims in history’s name or those who claim to have uncovered the truth once and for all. In the end, my only advice is use it, enjoy it, but always handle history with care.

MacMillan does not try to do much, and what she attempts to do is done pretty monotonously. A decent evening read, for a book based on a lecture.

[Jim Coughenour · Rating 2 out of 5]

Reading this book was like sipping a cup of tepid cocoa. I picked it up with high expectations – MacMillan is the much-heralded author of Paris 1919 – and was almost immediately disappointed by a style crafted to offend and interest no one. In the spiky sub-genre of the "uses and abuses of history," this book is all soft round edges. Here's a typical sentence: "History has so often produced conflicts, but it can also help in bringing about reconciliations." (p. 136) I'm tempted to say that the book's most useful feature is its suggestions for "further reading." Perhaps Dangerous Games is best recommended as an exceptionally safe annotated bibliography.

By way of contrast, I'd offer a couple historians not mentioned in her book from either side of the political spectrum: John Lukacs and Robert Fisk. To read Lukacs on Hitler, Stalin or Churchill, or Fisk on the mendacity of Euro-American involvement in the Middle East is to be challenged and braced by authors who take history very seriously indeed. Fisk opens The Age of the Warrior with a blistering attack on historians who minimize or deny the Armenian genocide – a bit of ancient history that still burns like acid. Reading MacMillan you'd only have a dim idea that anything essential was at stake: "It is absolutely true that a dreadful thing was done to the Armenian subjects of the Ottoman Turks during World War I." Her facts are correct; but her tone makes it sound as if murdering a half-million or more people is a regrettable lapse in manners. This sweet-tempered survey may convince us that history isn't bunk, but it sure is boring.

[Sesana · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mislead by the cover copy. Reading the book jacket would lead you to believe that this will be a sort of history of who has misquoted and misused history, and how and to what purposes. There is a bit of that, a very little bit. But it's really more of a lengthy essay on the very general whys and hows of what makes people try to use history to their own ends. There are examples, sure, but not nearly as many as I had thought there would be. It's still very well-written, and interesting, and I thought the reasoning was pretty solid. Still, the book that I thought I was going to read would have been far more interesting.

[Lyn Elliott · Rating 4 out of 5]

This excellent little book is drawn from a lecture series and has the liveliness and easy flow one would expect as a result. It is certainly not a work of high theory on the nature of history or the way history should be written, rather a plea to be both wary of using it as a basis for territorial expansion, for instance, and to be aware of histories and cultures before we, for instance, embark rashly on invasion of another's territory.
It is sensible, practical, uses many examples from the twentieth and twenty first centuries and should be compulsory reading for all politicians, army generals and government policy makers. Students too.

[Eric_W · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is especially timely given the proposed changes to history textbooks by the Texas Commission on Education that would increase the visibility of Newt Gingrinch and Phyllis Schlafly at the expense of Thurgood Marshall. (This problem is not new. Frances Fitzgerald wrote a terrific book several years ago about the problem of textbooks in America Revised.)

Nations use history as a way to inspire nationalistic feeling. They do so by selectively inculcating "lessons" gleaned from the past to illustrate some political agenda. No one was better at this than George (I wanna be King) W Bush and Dick (I really am one) Cheney. Both often cited the experience of WW II as justification for their actions in Iraq. They confused the experience of defeated peoples, e.g. Germany and Japan whose societies were rebuilt from the bottom up whether they liked it or not (they could be "treated with arbitrary ruthlessness,") with that of liberated nations (Greece, Yugoslavia, Belgium and Italy which were allowed, with mixed success and often considerable violence and conflict, to rebuild their own societies the way they thought they wanted.) "George W. Bush liked to compare the challenge he faced from America's foes with that which Winston Churchill confronted seventy years ago. Vice President Dick Cheney once said that global terrorism represents the gravest threat Western civilization has ever faced. Such assertions exposed the awesome magnitude of both men's ignorance." But it's all nations who engage in such dis-ingenuousness. She cites examples from Israel, Hindus in India, China, Ireland, Britain, and even Canada.

Americans (see History Wars: The Enola Gay and Other Battles for the American Past) are not the only ones who suffer from an overdeveloped sense of righteousness when it comes to their actions in wartime. Apparently, a firestorm of protest broke out in Canada in 1992 following the CBC documentary The Valour and the Horror which discussed the effectiveness and morality of strategic bombing. Some 20,000 Canadian airmen had participated and about 50% died. Veterans organizations were outraged that the issue could be framed in anything other than "black and white, good and evil." MacMillan was asked to testify and said, "History should not be written to make the present generation feel good but to remind us that human affairs are complicated." "The idea that those who actually took part in great events or lived through particular times have a superior understanding to those who come later is a deeply held yet wrong-headed one," as Charles Pellegrino is learning to his chagrin. National myths are too cherished to be troubled by facts. I doubt if southerners will ever discontinue viewing the Civil War as anything other than the War of Northern Aggression.

China, Japan, Israel, Russia, all have whitewashed views of their more sordid actions. Macmillan describes Hindu disregard for Muslim contributions to Indian history. And we are all familiar with Mormon attempts to rewrite their forbearer's actions in a more favorable light. MacMillan rightly notes that those present at an event do not necessarily have an accurate view of what happened and the recent travails of author Charles Pelligrino who is being pilloried for relying too much on the fictitious memory of an airman who apparently wasn't even where he said he was should make all of us a little wary of anecdotal accounts. (The Last Train from Hiroshima: The Survivors Look Back - see http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/05/mov...)

"Historians, however are not scientists, and if they do not make what they are doing intelligible to the public, then others will rush in to fill the void. Political and other leaders too often get away with misusing or abusing history for their own ends because the rest of us do not know enough to challenge them. " Susan Jacoby tells the story of visiting a bar in New York the evening of 9/11. One fellow says to another that the WTC attack was like Pearl Harbor. "What was Pearl Harbor?" the other asked. "It was when the Vietnamese dropped some bombs in a harbor and started the Vietnam War," was the reply. MacMillan argues that such woeful ignorance has much more serious repercussions than just a display of stupidity. The Bush administration was using an attack by a few idealists and fundamentalists to justify a war against a state and a continuing -- some might argue infinite --war against a tactic and idea.

Sometimes, institutional memory fails us and the example she cites was totally unfamiliar to me. In 1979, rumors circulated that the Soviets had begun stationing troops in Cuba. Tensions increased and people recalled the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. Kennedy had secretly agreed not to invade Cuba if the missiles were withdrawn and now it appeared the Soviets were violently an agreement not to station troops there again. The intelligence services were asked to investigate and sure enough, there were Russkies in Cuba. What the intelligence services had forgotten was that Kennedy had backed down on his initial demand that the Soviets remove all Russian troops from the island. Tensions and rhetoric increased in volume and disaster was averted on by Dobrynin's shuttle diplomacy between the two countries assuring the Russians that it was an honest mistake and that the U.S. had simply forgotten the earlier agreement. Cyrus Vance wrote that the incident as "Appalling. Awareness of the Soviet ground force units had faded from the institutional memories of the intelligence agencies."

In another example of institutional myopia, T.X. Hames, a Marine colonel wrote a book analyzing counter-insurgency tactics learned from the Vietnam War, an episode the military preferred to leave forgotten. Unable to find a publisher, because no one was interested, his book The Sling and the Stone: On War in the 21st Century was finally released in 2004 when the United States was having to relearn the difficult lessons of insurgency in Iraq.

The last few decades have seen a rise in the need of nations to apologize for actions committed by governments during wartime that, in retrospect, appear to be unfeeling and/or discriminatory. Should we pay reparations to the ancestors of slaves or Native American tribes. Is it necessary to review decisions made in the context of the time? Japanese and Germans were interned or had property confiscated even they they might have been generations removed from their "homeland." Given that people at the time did not know that the Axis Powers would lose, was the paranoia justified? If we don't have accurate historical review, can we avoid making the same mistakes in the future?

For several of my comments I am indebted to an excellent review of Macmillan's fascinating book written by Max Hastings, ironically one of those "amateur" historians, in the March 11, 2010 New York Review of Books. (It's worth the $3 and can be read here http://www.nybooks.com/articles/artic...)

[Song · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent book. Easy to read yet full of insights from one of the top notch historians in the world. Margaret answered the question of “what’s history and what’s the use of history”. She emphasized history is NOT science. History should not frighten away the common readers with the obscure academic expressions or jargons. History should keep the tight connection with politics. HISTORY IS POLITICS.

I fully agree with the author’s idea: only when the nations can honestly review their history, even though it’s painful for some people or government, that’s the beginning of the societies to become mature.

It’s a great pleasure to read this masterpiece. The author used plenty of examples to support her opinions. No difficult words but full of wisdoms. After all, Margaret MacMillion used the book to show what’s the best history book.

[Nick Davies · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an interesting read, not without fault, but (despite the first half raising more queries from me as a reader than it offered answers) overall I found it more deserving of merit than deserving of criticism.

MacMillan aims to define the role of history, and seeking and publicising historical knowledge gained through research, and also to explore examples of the pitfalls of misuse of historical fact/opinion by leaders and followers alike. There are plenty of examples of so-called abuses of 'history' by politicians and people seeking to promote a point of view, there are also many well-made points which would hopefully challenge the misconceptions of many a reader. The second half of the book is especially good, as it deals more with the use of history to justify nationalism and conflict, and also touches on examples of controversies when history is presented to members of the public with the complication of modern eyes viewing history with a benefit of hindsight and a deficit of the context in which actions were taken.

However, I had fundamental issues with the book (esp. the first few chapters) relating to the nature of historical research. Perhaps because my background is in 'pure' sciences, I could not escape the uncertainty that the author was just relating a series of standpoints reached via historians seeking to come up with new interpretations on events from limited data and inherently flawed resources, as opposed to stating indisputable truths - a balance between 'fact' and 'interpretation' is a difficult one. By listing a large number of examples (sometimes in too little detail for my liking) where history has been misrepresented or misinterpreted by politicians, members of the public and even other historical researchers, I was left with a sense that the interpretation of history is inherently and unresolvedly flawed. Only given impossible access to all resources on an event, and with the benefit of hindsight only possible some time afterwards, could a historian (or, to avoid bias, a large consensus of historians) provide a 'true' history of that event. I was hence left with some of my questions doomed to remain unresolved.

[Matt · Rating 4 out of 5]

MacMillan writes what can best be called a soapbox on history and its common misconceptions, from her perspective as a 'professional' historian and academic. Some readers may label the book as the historian's manifesto against the ongoing bastardisation of the subject and how its abuse can (obviously) completely change the future. MacMillan examines the various means by which history can be used as a tool and how those uses can, and commonly are, used to push a specific view. While the adage states that history is controlled by the victors, MacMillan makes mention that history can also be skewed by those in positions of power to shape a future based on a past that has never taken place. Some, like the Community Chinese, refuse to acknowledge any history other than that which they sanction. Others, like Bush 43, will pluck shattered pieces of history together to suit them and create an ill-fitting puzzle to support their antics. Throughout the tome, she examines some of the ways that history has caused battles between those who LIVED it and those who EXPLAINED it for others. Can neither be wrong, when they disagree? History, that seemingly neutral social science, can be as controversial as it is useful for the general public, though anyone who does not use an objective and analytical brain when reading it will fall down the rabbit hole and presume they are well-informed. Just as the NRA spits out their rubbish about the Second Amendment, there will be those who say that history does not shape people, people shape people. Alas, as MacMillan tries to posit throughout, history in the wrong hands will do much more harm than good, though a single voice in the wilderness cannot stop it all. A must-read for those who enjoy taking a step back and thinking from another perspective. A true MacMillan gem, not to be overlooked.

MacMillan is one of the key historians I have read in my adult life; her work quite varied, but always thorough. That she is Canadian and brings the Canadian flavour to this tome is simply an added bonus. As she does (where she can) often, MacMillan pulls from her previous publications to offer key examples. While I am nowhere near done her entire collection, it was nice to see this bridging, especially for a history buff such as myself. While she is not normally preachy, this book makes the case that preachy is needed, otherwise the premise is completely lost. In doing so, as a great academic will do, she supports her ideas with concrete examples and seeks to analyse them to ensure the reader clearly understands the concept. History is one of the most dangerous of the social sciences and should not be taken lightly. True, there is bias in her perspective, but also a great deal of experience that the reader should heed.

Kudos, Dr. MacMillan, for offering up this wonderful piece of work. It gives all those who read it a better understanding of the weapon history can be, and should be required reading for many before they pull it from their quiver.

[Marc Lamot · Rating 2 out of 5]

Interesting subject of course, but a bit dry. See my more elaborate review in my Sense-of-history account: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

[Liam Ostermann · Rating 3 out of 5]

When I was in school and at university all students of history had to read, or at least pretend to have read, 'What is History' by E.H. Carr whose authorship rather put me off the book and the idea of 'books on history' (E.H. Carr wrote a massive, his admirers called it magisterial, history of the Soviet Union which white washed/excused the barbarities of Lenin and Stalin as 'historically inevitability' which I as a 17 year old, and many far more intelligent people then and since, was hog wash. No serious academic, outside Putin's Russia, would take such a line now). Now although Margaret Macmillan doesn't plough the same furrow as E.H. Carr in her book on history I can't help feeling that you would be far better reading a book on the history of 'something rather than a book on 'history'. Perhaps I am simply revealing the shallowness of my philosophical and abstract intellectual reading.

Like a number of other reviewers I can't resist quoting from the book's conclusion:

"If the study of history does nothing more than teach us humility, scepticism and awareness of ourselves, then it has done something useful. We must continue to examine our own assumptions and those of others and ask, where's the evidence? Or, is there another explanation? We should be wary of grand claims in history's name or those to have uncovered the truth once and for all. In the end, my only advice is use it, enjoy it, but always handle history with care."

I think they are very wise words and I respect what Professor MacMillan says in the defence of 'academic' history, which really means a proper respect for sources. Being old enough to remember when the work of historian A.J.P. Taylor on the origins of WWII caused an uproar by overturning accepted tropes I actually admire the way work of historians like Richard Evans have redendered works like 'Hitler: A Study in Tyranny' redundant. There is a great deal that was written which time has rendered out-of-date because it was trapped within, or at least it emerged from, a particular historical and cultural milieu. Historians have as short a memory as anyone.

Who now regards Conrad von Hötzendorf as "probably the best strategist of the war (WWI)." (for more on Hotzendorf's one time stellar reputation see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franz_C...). Who remembers when the Habsburg empire was the prison house of nations (see: https://www.pure.ed.ac.uk/ws/portalfi... and https://eprints.soton.ac.uk/456292/1/...) never mind that hoary old trope the 'inevitability' of the Russian revolution (which meant not the end of Tsarism but the triumph of Bolshevism). History as it is understood is always changing, I saw that growing in Ireland in the 1970s when the horrors of the violence in Northern Ireland caused such widespread rejection of the pieties of the cult of violence that it took a 21st century fictional work 'At Swim Two Boys' by Jamie O'Neill to make comprehensible why men and boys went out and died in 1916 (that is only one strand a multilayered novel). Professor Mitchell is excellent in her analysis of how history can be misused or misunderstood - she is particularly good on Munich and how it has been used, erroneously and tragically from Suez to Iraq.

Still I can't help feeling that this collection of essays is really surplus to need. Historians, or those read historians, know what she has to say. Those who don't don't read historians and aren't going to read her.

[Jamilla Smith-Joseph · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ever relevant and thought-provoking, this should be required reading across the board. Not only are there lessons for the leaders of today and beyond, but also for the general public. The awareness (or lack of) of history enables lies and generalisations to be told and believed - a pertinent issue globally, I would argue. Macmillan’s conclusion is particularly powerful: history, when utilised responsibly, makes us more critical, but also more understanding. Any argument which is, ‘we should always ask more questions’, is one I will always get on board with.

My only complaint is that I wanted more! I understand the intention was likely to give a broad overview of the major issues interspersed with lots of relevant examples - and the result is a nice digestible read (ignoring how long it actually took me to read it). But I think taking the time to more closely scrutinise a few key examples in more detail could have benefited this. Maybe that’s just me - either way, it’s inspired to me to read and think more on the subject, and of our leaders.

[Rodrigo Mayorga · Rating 4 out of 5]

Un texto fascinante, no sobre la historia “de” nada, sino que sobre las múltiples formas en las que usamos (y abusamos) de la historia en el presente. Quizás porque es un tema que estudio y lo leí ademas en el contexto de una investigación esperaba sí un poco más de profundidad y teorización, aunque de hecho eso lo hace aún más recomendable como lectura para todo aquel interesado en el tema.

[Denise · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fascinating subject, and MacMillan touches on many noteworthy points, but on the whole I found this disappointingly superficial and insubstantial for a book written by an eminent historian. She peppers her (not exactly groundbreaking) assertions with plenty of examples, but doesn't go into anything resembling depth for any of them.

[Alison Fong · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read this book for class and really enjoyed it. Describes and gives examples of how history is used now and in the past to make decisions and craft policy. Historians are so important.

[Henry Shih · Rating 4 out of 5]

歷史的運用與濫用 2019-01-01

歷史的簡化、單面向、刪減、類比、自我安慰、強調特定事件、受害者自居心態，導致使用歷史作為一種當下所運用的判斷方法，而其實只是濫用了歷史的所保留的重要概念與作為一個正確的工具。
學習歷史重要的是保持著永遠懷疑，並永遠提出進一步的提問，想知道更多過去歷史的某的事件、想法或態度。而又因無法解答所有問題的正確答案，看待這複雜的世界就不能僅僅只用一種單一的發法去對待，ON THE ONE HEAD – ON THE OTHER HAND，重要的是那過程。

[Wendelle]

As an international relations major not too long ago, I was in awe of Margaret MacMillan in her status as both Trinity's provost and author of 'Paris 1919'. That was the extent of my familiarity with her reputation. This book is instructive about the uses and abuses of history, in particular how ideologues and fundamentalists use history to aid their narrative.

However, it is also instructive about the opinions of Margaret MacMillan herself. Some of her opinions are mild enough. For instance, she disagrees with the increasing role of theorisation in history, admitting she grew up with an undergraduate curriculum focusing on political and economic history and encouraging professional historians not to surrender this sphere to amateur writers.

But one opinion in particular gave me pause. Margaret is very much scornful of apology tours conducted by current leaders for the mistakes or evils of their predecessors or countries. In particular:
"Canada used to charge a head tax on immigrants coming from China. Its intent was undoubtedly racist... But does present day Canada have to pay recompense to the descendants of those who chose to pay the head tax? How much is enough? Sadly, there have been some unedifying squabbles among different groups claiming to speak for Chinese Canadians about how any govt money ought to be distributed."

I don't believe in paying money either, but the way this issue and question is posed and phrased here is so obviously loaded. I'm experiencing deja vu seeing the method used by twitter bots and trolls repeated, here by a credible historian: The initial admission of the opposite side-- 'it is admittedly racist'-- to appear reasonable even as she clearly isn't interested in entertaining the idea of recompense. Then the swivel to attacking the opposite position-- of recompense-- by painting the opposition in a terrible light: 'unedifying squabbles' over money amounts by the clearly greedy Chinese Canadian descendants. It leaves a caricature of the opposition-- the Chinese Canadian groups-- in readers' minds. Note also the question: 'How much is enough?' as if hinting towards a slippery slope that readers will fear, that greedy Chinese will keep asking and grubbing. Ma'am, there is no need for that loaded question. The monetary value of their suffering is clearly countable: give them the equal amount they paid before in head tax, whether adjusted or unadjusted by inflation. If you desire to pay them at all.

That's not even the end of it. Margaret Macmillan makes the further audacious, disingenious argument that apology tours obstruct real changes in the conditions of oppressed people, like African-American descendants of slaves and Aborigines:
"Words are cheap-- although they can lead to expensive demands.. Moreover, apologies about the past can be used as an excuse for not doing very much in the present." Newsflash, Ms. Macmillan, the situation is not an either/or. One can apologize profusely for previous oppressions and societal mistakes, and at the same time fund programs and increase efforts that improve the welfare of African-Americans and Aborigines today. In fact, apology tours serve to put the current conditions on the forefront of national consciousness and the national conversation, so the two acts are complementary to each other. It seems you just don't want to cater to 'expensive demands', and inconvenient requests.

[Anna Pearce · Rating 3 out of 5]

“History is about remembering the past but it is also about what we choose to forget….Some of the most difficult and protracted wars in societies around the world have been over what is being omitted or downplayed in the telling of their history – and what should be kept in. When people talk, as they frequently do, about the need for “proper” history, what they really mean is the history they want and like. School textbooks, university courses, movies, books, war memorials, art galleries, and museums have all from time to time been caught up in debates that say as much or more about the present and its concerns as they do about ostensible subject of history.” (pg 127)

MacMillan uses a variety of examples to demonstrate how history has been used to support wars, land claims, and memorials, as well as argue against the same. She argues that this is, in part, caused by the influx of amateur historians, while professional historians argue that they shouldn’t be expected to write fascinating history because the public does not have similar expectations of scientists.

Generally, I agree with MacMillan. However, I found she used far too many examples – if one wasn’t convinced by the third, I suspect one will not be convinced by the fourth or fifth. As well, this work began as a series of lectures, and I think that accounts for repeated use and explanation of the same phrasing, such as mentioning more than once that Churchill had quipped that the Balkans had more history than they could swallow.

I do want to recommend this book because the variety of examples are far-reaching – not only American abuses of history, but Canadian, German, British, Chinese, Japanese, French, Turkish, Greek—it is a lengthy list. I suspect that everyone will read something they find offensive to have challenged (as I did). There is a lot of focus on war and how leaders have twisted history to support wars, especially in later chapters, so this may be of interest to people who are interested in anti-war activism.

On the other hand, I found the repetition irritating. I think Lies my Teacher Told Me makes the same argument, but in a more engaging (and American-centric, as it is a critique of how American schools teach history) way. I felt that too many of the examples were about war, and the last chapter, “History as Guide and Friend,” focused entirely on war. I would have appreciated more examples to do with things like land claims, residential schools, and reparation payments.

Overall, I found this book interesting. I will keep it for later reference. But I do not suspect I will reread it in its entirety.

[Malcolm · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have very mixed feelings about this book: part of MacMillan's case is that the recent turn to the reflexive in History, manifest mainly as a debate among historians about how we do what we do, has taken serious scholarship out of the public domain. There seems to be a clear case being made that methodological reflexivity should be abandoned. I may have misread her and imposed meanings that she did not intend (but I don't think so). These two points are not necessarily related – we can be more methodologically reflexive while at the same time being actively involved in the big public debates. That is, I don't see one or the other but both.

Where I am with MacMillan is the need that as historians we actively challenge the easy, anti-intellectual, and self-serving uses of history and the past in much public sector discourse. The politicians, columnists, and other not trained in the skills of historical and evidence scepticism that is essential to history have, I think, skewed our broader sense of historical significance (think of the narrow grasp of the specifics of historical events, including basic stuff like when they happened, that we see demonstrated every day in the pub, on the bus, in Parliament, on TV news and current affiars shows). That is to say that those of us who are highly skilled in this area have left the public discourses about the past to those with a barrow to push with the effect that broader historical understandings of the past are throughly inadequate.

So, I guess I am a little flattered by the case: MacMillan almost constructs a model of the historian as hero saving the public and the past from the distortions of history imposed by lazy, sound-bite seeking politicians and ideologues: I rather like being the defender of truth.

That said, the book is accessible, argumentative, and provocative, and I hope will provide grounds for some spirited debate in my profession. There is also a six page conclusion about the importance of History (the discipline) that I will use with my undergraduates to get a debate going.

[Mike Clinton · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've had this shelved for a year or so and finally picked it up to give it a quick read. The new academic year will start at the end of this month, so I want to begin getting myself gradually into the mental flow of reflecting upon the critical nature of history. I'm giving this five stars not so much because it has the attributes of a profound and influential classic, although it is profound in an understated way, engagingly written, and accessibly describes examples from around the world that demonstrate how debates about what history should be told and how link the past with the present in substantive and meaningful ways; rather, it's a personal five-star rating because it corresponds so well with what I teach my own students - to the point that the content overlaps noticeably. Whether I can assign the book to students in an introductory general education class is something that I'll need to give some consideration. MacMillan provides sufficient context for the historical references that she makes - but that's my assessment; many students tune out as soon as they encounter a reference unfamiliar to them, without recognizing that the relevant background is laid out in explanation there in the book. In any case, it's certainly a book that I would recommend for students entering undergraduate history programs.

[Meg - A Bookish Affair · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book fell sort of flat for me. It's been said that 'history is written by the victors' and MacMillan, a noted historian, believes this is true (as do I). MacMillan's premise is that what we understand to be our history is really subjective. Yes, there are facts in history but there is always story and that is the part that becomes subjective. What facts are left in? What facts are left out? What's glossed over? What's emphasized? I think this is something that historians struggle with a lot.

I was expecting something a little more in depth. Each chapter is dedicated to a different way that history can be used. It's chock full of examples but with very little explanation of the implications of how the particular history told. I really wish that it would have gone more into more of how history is told differently depending on who is telling it. Recently there's been a couple news stories about school history books in various areas that have either included or un-included things based on the area that the books were for. It would have been interested to hear more about that.

This is a good overview but if you're looking for something with more explanation and food for thought

[Elinor · Rating 1 out of 5]

A disappointingly simplistic assessment for the general (read not historically educated) reader, this book skims over mostly political instances of the ‘misuse of history’ without interrogating or interpreting them in a philosophical manner.
MacMillan states what she thinks history should do but doesn’t engage with any of the potential variants in approach to history (social or post-modern for instance).
She engages with history at the level of the national political debate at a very broad level and with the idea of commemorations and apologies and postulates history’s usefulness to the nation but does not suggest what function history might serve outside this.
An easy read but not an engaging one and not a book to recommend, also lacking in foot/end notes. MacMillan doesn’t include or acknowledge the wider scholarly discourses on historiography and tends to treat history as ‘history’ – a unified homogenous entity with an agenda or at the least a sense of direction.

[Isaac Powers · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think Macmillan lacked a little bit of her own analysis. Very little analysis is given and more is just a summary of historical events and the thoughts of the time. I thought it could have used less time and events covered and more thought and care given to individual events. All the best thoughts and quotes are other peoples, not the authors which serves only to make her role in the book a bit weaker. Also it didn’t really introduce me to many new ideas I hadn’t already covered. The book is a product of its time and dated being that it came out in 2008.

[emily · Rating 2 out of 5]

5/10, it had a good overall message and used some well thought out examples however I did think the examples were all limited to the twentieth century and therefore didn’t show the diversity of time. she came to lots of sweeping conclusions which I found a bit overwhelming but it was a good book for a starter to history

[John David · Rating 3 out of 5]

Whatever our relationship to history - whether we were forced to read it in school, if we voluntarily read it today, or if we honestly and considerately reconcile ourselves to its importance – we almost never try to understand the influence of historiography. After all, without graphon there would be no historia. MacMillan’s book is mostly concerned with introducing the casual reader to what could roughly be construed as historiographical concerns: Who owns the past? How do we shape this past in ways that make ourselves more abiding or marginal parts of it? And perhaps most important, when we abuse it either purposefully or accidentally, who suffers and how?

Despite the relatively liberal (understood in the contemporary, American sense) tone of much of the commentary, she strikes a conservative one in suggesting that history has unfortunately found itself into the hands of amateurs, and also that history has been dethroned by academic mish-mash pursuits that go by names like “cultural studies” and “African studies,” claiming that these are more specialized forms of victimhood than they are properly historical. MacMillan seems to be operating under the fallacy that if it weren’t for the pernicious tentacles of rank neophytes, the precious reserve of History would remain, like a virgin, un-deflowered – which is wonderfully ironic given the subject in question here.

Even setting aside the relative merits or demerits of certain trends in social science, no one can honestly look at the body of history written by professional historians and claim that their work is free of abuse, extensive deployment of both genetic and naturalistic fallacies, self-serving conclusions, and other epiphenomena of sloppy thinking. The kind of formal, scholarly history that she favors in the book is very much studded with all of these. Being an academic and an historian herself, I suppose it is natural to want to defend your profession as one of the last ramparts against the barbarian hordes and the great unwashed masses of writers publishing for a popular audience.

The book more has a more substantial problem, though. I think for most serious readers of the subject – I can’t imagine someone casually interested in history picking up a book with this title – the depth of the examples doesn’t really provide any lasting or fruitful insights. In the chapter called “History and Identity,” which explores the many ways in which we make sense of ourselves through the refraction of historical experience (or, to borrow her phrase, “enforcing an imagined community,” a phrase she borrowed in turn from Benedict Anderson), MacMillan mentions: the legacy of lynching in the United States, the rise of the deaf rights movement, the nineteenth-century Italian nationalist Mazzini, Karl Marx, the history of Vimy Ridge (an important place-name in the creation of Canadian cultural identity), French-Canadian nationalism, events of Tiananmen Square – and more. Because of the jumpiness in subject matter, MacMillan never really gets to explore anything but the patina of the problematic relationship between history and identity.

Had she chosen one of two of the above, she would have been able to fully flesh out an interesting and insightful argument. As it stands, there are no new ideas that are going to open the eyes of most readers. It could be, however, a very useful introduction into the world of how history is seen by theorists of the subject as not just a list of objective facts, events, and places, but rather a complex accretion disk of memory, wishful thinking, and that is ultimately the artistic reconstruction of minds who themselves are always inextricably caught within the nets of that history.

For a much more challenging take by a writer not at all afraid to bring to bear the more intimidating tools of literary and historiographical criticism to his arguments, I would recommend the recently decreased Hayden White, whose “Metahistory: The Historical Imagination in Nineteenth-Century Europe” is nothing short of canon-worthy, but very demanding. White’s books of essays “The Content of the Form: Narrative Discourse and Historical Interpretation,” “Tropics of Discourse: Essays in Cultural Criticism” and “The Fiction of the Narrative: Essays on History, Literature, and Theory, 1957-2007” are usually just as difficult, but are delivered in more easily digested pieces. While some of these might take the reader a bit further afield than they’re accustomed, the richness and relevance of White’s conclusions are always thought-provoking and germane to any social science, not just history.

[Robert Jeens · Rating 3 out of 5]

This short book by the historian Margaret MacMillan is basically a compendium of many controversies over history in a variety of countries. It doesn’t really have a compelling theme besides rather obvious statements such as “History can be helpful; it can also be very dangerous,” or “We must continue to examine our own assumptions and those of others and ask, where’s the evidence? Or, is there another explanation? We should be wary of grand claims in history’s name or those who claim to have uncovered the truth once and for all.” Still, these commonplace truths are often lost and bear repeating, especially when we are dealing with politically contentious issues.
MacMillan wrote the book in 2008, and she saw how, after the end of the Cold War and the discipline imposed by the dividing-up of the world into two blocks, “history has become important again.” Age-old antagonisms flared up. One-sided history is used by ideologues – nationalists, religious fundamentalists, fascists and communists – to promote their cause or theory at the expense of another. History is also used to try to heal, as in the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission to document the abuses of apartheid, the Canadian Truth and Reconciliation Commission to investigate Residential Schools for Indigenous children, or the Canadian and American apologies to the Japanese they interred in World War Two.
She criticizes her own craft, the professional historians. She says they are too concerned with social history and theorizing and not enough about what actually happened among the most important decision-makers in the past. The results are often boring, and the result is that professional historians have ceded their ground to people who do not do as good a job. The idea that history can be reduced to one overall factor or idea, be that colonialism, or class, nation or geography is absurd. We need historians because “collective memory”, memories of a people, is often one-sided, subject to passionate debate and argument, and events take on different meanings over time. “It can be dangerous to question the stories people tell about themselves because so much of our identity is both shaped by and bound up with our history.” But that is what good historians must do, be controversial and uncomfortable and explode myths.
Which brings MacMillan to her chapters History and Identity and History and Nationalisms. In both cases, history is often misused to give people identities. Certain events are accentuated and others ignored. She looks at, among others, Southern American whites after the Civil War, French Canadian nationalists whitewashing popular support for Vichy France during World War Two, how nationalism developed in Europe in the 19th Century, Palestinians and Jews, and the wars in the former Yugoslavia. She quotes Ernest Renan, “A nation is a group of people united by a mistaken view of the past and a hatred of their neighbours.”
There is a nice chapter entitled History as a Guide, in which she shows how politicians have compared themselves to statesmen of the past. During the Cuban Missile Crisis, when the Americans and Soviets confronted each over because of the existence of Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba, John F. Kennedy’s generals compared the situation to Munich, the conference at which the British Prime Minister gave into Hitler over the fate of Czechoslovakia, and which became a byword for the dangers of appeasing dictators, and urged confrontation. Kennedy had just read The Guns of August, a look at how World War One had emerged out of blunders, mismanagement and misunderstandings, and was much more cautious. Again, George W. Bush invoked Munich in the argument to invade Iraq. It turns out the proper books he should have read were The Seven Pillars of Wisdom, about the Arab revolt against the imperialistic Ottoman Empire, or The Battle of Algiers, about the brutality that colonizers and the colonized can inflict upon each other.
All of the themes identified by MacMillan are still present in 2021. I am a Canadian who is a professor at a university in South Korea. The South Koreans have their own history wars to fight, and if I were to publicly take a position counter to a popular one, I might have a very awkward time of it: I have seen students protesting outside other professors’ doors in similar circumstances, and people have been sacked. However, being in South Korea is an advantage for me in a different way. I can fearlessly comment on Canadian controversies from a very comfortable distance, knowing that the student radicals there are unlikely to find me here. And so I shall.
As I read the CBC news this morning, I saw that the curriculum in Nova Scotia was being described as racist for the way it teaches certain aspects of Indigenous history. Specifically, students were asked to list the advantages and disadvantages of residential schools. Also, they were asked why poverty among Indigenous people is common, and the same question with regards to alcoholism. This is a classic example of history being hijacked by identity politics. First of all, you and I may agree that, overall, the residential school system in Canada, in which Indigenous children were taken from their parents and then systematically stripped of their culture, appears to have been a very bad idea from the vantage point of 2021. That does not mean that there were never any advantages. Did children become literate or numerate? It just means those advantages were greatly outweighed by the disadvantages. This is a strictly logical conclusion. As far as the poverty and alcoholism questions go, the question to ask is, is this factual? Are poverty and alcoholism rates among Indigenous people in Canada higher than among the general population? If the answer is ‘No,” then the question is not factual and should be removed. If the answer is “Yes,” then the next logical question is Why? When things are factually correct but cannot be spoken of, then this is the definition of political correctness.
On the other hand, here is a story from the same source of the same day that I think is useful. There is talk of amending gravesites in the National Cemetery to have the tombstones better reflect the roles the people interred there played in Residential Schools. That may be a good thing. We cannot be afraid of knowledge. Treat people as responsible adults. Let them know what really happened and let them draw their own conclusions.
Further, during the Black Lives Matter movement last year, it was suggested to put up plaques in Toronto to identify houses built by slaves. This, I think, may be another useful reminder of our past. Let’s also be reminded that the biggest slave owner in Upper Canada was the Iroquois leader Joseph Brant, who has both Brantford and Joseph Brant Hospital named after him. The British Empire certainly paid a notorious part in the trans-Atlantic slave trade. Many fortunes were built on suffering. After the British Empire abolished slavery in 1832, though (and I support the celebration of Emancipation Day in Canada), the British Navy, along with later the American Union Army, became the greatest force for anti-slavery in the 19th Century world. History is not one-sided. It is complicated.
Difficult decisions need to be made in public education because there isn’t time for everything. I go back to MacMillan’s advice to professional historians. What were the most important people who made the most important decisions that created our world today doing? Start with that.
This is not MacMillan’s best book, but it is not a waste of time, either. She outlines many historical controversies, but I wish she had taken a stand on more of them. Her chapter headings are exactly what they should be: Who Owns the Past? History and Identity; History and Nationalism; Presenting History’s Bill; History Wars; History as a Guide. The book is not a philosophical tour de force. It does not offer grand pronouncements or principles, just common sense notions and many examples from a working, excellent historian at the top of her game. We would do well to follow her example if we can. I will end with my favourite Karl Marx quote from the book, “Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past.”
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[Nehal Singh · Rating 3 out of 5]

The author drives the point home in a lot of the examples provided - history is used by those in power to control the narrative and as consequence, the masses. I would have loved to read a more in-depth perusal of a few case studies, as the book is more of a factual summary with some context. Too easy to skim, I re-read many pages so that I could digest the information - people, countries and dates thrown around in no actual chronological sense but rather by the themes of individual chapters, that focussed on the broad concepts behind the study of history itself. An important book that made me question my own biases, but would've loved to see it played out in more depth.

[Baxter Hodge · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent book for any new or aspiring historian. Demonstrates that history, like statistics, is more prone to abuse and manipulation than we like to believe. For anyone with historiography experience, the book will not surprise you but is still an interesting read. However the book also assumes that the reader knows about the arguments behind certain conflicts (French Quebec, Yugoslavia, etc.) so it’s also not ideal for someone with no previous study of history. I would recommend this book to anyone who is either obsessed with applying their own side’s “pop-history” or feels frustrated by their opositions telling of events.