MacMillan, Margaret – The Bell Bookshop

Peacemakers

Emma — Thu, 14 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000

WITH A NEW FOREWORD BY MAX HASTINGS

WINNER OF THE DUFF COOPER PRIZE 2001
WINNER OF THE PEN HESSELL TILTMAN PRIZE 2002
WINNER OF THE SAMUEL JOHNSON PRIZE 2003

‘A ground-breaking book . . . The story of Europe’s diplomatic meltdown has never been better told’ Spectator

‘Enjoyable and illuminating . . . MacMillan is that wonderful combination – an academic and scholar who writes well, with a marvellous clarity of thought’ ANTONY BEEVOR, The Times

Between January and July 1919, after the war to end all wars, men and women from all over the world converged on Paris for the Peace Conference. At its heart were the leaders of the three great powers – Woodrow Wilson, Lloyd George and Clemenceau. Kings, prime ministers and foreign ministers with their crowds of advisers rubbed shoulders with journalists and lobbyists for a hundred causes – from Armenian independence to women’s rights. Everyone had business in Paris that year – T.E. Lawrence, Queen Marie of Romania, Maynard Keynes, Ho Chi Minh. There had never been anything like it before, and there never has been since.

For six extraordinary months the city was effectively the centre of world government as the peacemakers wound up bankrupt empires and created new countries. They pushed Russia to the sidelines, alienated China and dismissed the Arabs, struggled with the problems of Kosovo, of the Kurds, and of a homeland for the Jews.

The peacemakers, so it has been said, failed dismally; failed above all to prevent another war. Margaret MacMillan argues that they have unfairly been made scapegoats for the mistakes of those who came later. They tried to be evenhanded, but their goals – to make defeated countries pay without destroying them, to satisfy impossible nationalist dreams, to prevent the spread of Bolshevism and to establish a world order based on democracy and reason – could not be achieved by diplomacy. Peacemakers offers a prismatic view of the moment when much of the modern world was first sketched out.

War

Emma — Thu, 07 Oct 2021 00:00:00 +0000

New York Times 10 Best Books of 2020Sunday Times best books for Autumn 2020Guardian critics’ pick for Autumn 2020Wall Street Journal notable book of 2020The time since the Second World War has been seen by some as the longest uninterrupted period of harmony in human history: the ‘long peace’, as Stephen Pinker called it. But despite this, there has been a military conflict ongoing every year since 1945. The same can be said for every century of recorded history. Is war, therefore, an essential part of being human? In War, Professor Margaret MacMillan explores the deep links between society and war and the questions they raise. We learn when war began – whether among early homo sapiens or later, as we began to organise ourselves into tribes and settle in communities. We see the ways in which war reflects changing societies and how war has brought change – for better and worse.Economies, science, technology, medicine, culture: all are instrumental in war and have been shaped by it – without conflict it we might not have had penicillin, female emancipation, radar or rockets. Throughout history, writers, artists, film-makers, playwrights, and composers have been inspired by war – whether to condemn, exalt or simply puzzle about it. If we are never to be rid of war, how should we think about it and what does that mean for peace?

Paris 1919

Emma — Tue, 11 Jun 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Previously published as Peacemakers

The peacemakers, so it has been said, failed dismally; failed above all to prevent another war. Margaret MacMillan argues that they have unfairly been made scapegoats for the mistakes of those who came later. They tried to be evenhanded, but their goals – to make defeated countries pay without destroying them, to satisfy impossible nationalist dreams, to prevent the spread of Bolshevism and to establish a world order based on democracy and reason – could not be achieved by diplomacy. Paris 1919 (originally published as Peacemakers) offers a prismatic view of the moment when much of the modern world was first sketched out.