The Uses and Abuses of History

109 Pages·2009·0.78 MB·English

by  Margaret MacMillan

Praise for The Uses and Abuses of History
“This is an eminently sensible and humane book, lucidly and enjoyably written
and argued. It is addressed to the general reader, and anyone interested in history
should find it an engaging, quick read.”
—The Globe and Mail
“The author maintains a tone of measured, reasoned and scholarly
approachability … This is history used as its own best argument.”
—Toronto Star
“A good quick read … a timely read.”
—Guelph Mercury
Praise for Margaret MacMillan
“MacMillan’s approach to history is to get under the skin of figures, to see them
not so much as good or evil but as all-too-human actors struggling with a task of
monumental difficulty even as they represented varying and conflicting
interests.”
—The New York Times
“MacMillan is a worldly historian with a supreme gift for seeing the big picture
… and telling the best story.”
—The Globe and Mail
“MacMillan provides a highly readable narrative which
combines detail and approachability.”
—The Guardian
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ALSO BY MARGARET M MILLAN
Nixon in China: The Week That Changed the World Women of the Raj
Canada and NATO: Uneasy Past, Uncertain Future (editor)
Paris 1919: Six Months That Changed the World Parties Long Estranged:
Canada and Australia in the Twentieth Century (editor) The Uneasy Century:
International Relations 1900–1990
(editor)
Canada’s House: Rideau Hall and the Invention of a Canadian Home
(with Marjorie Harris and Anne L. Desjardins) Extraordinary Canadians:
Stephen Leacock
Based on the Joanne Goodman Lecture Series of the
University of Western Ontario
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First published in a Viking Canada hardcover by Penguin Group (Canada),
a division of Pearson Canada Inc., 2008
Published in this edition, 2009
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Copyright © Margaret MacMillan, 2008
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ISBN: 978-0-14-305478-8
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blithe spirit, her quest for knowledge, and the rewarding
years she spent at the University of Western Ontario
INTRODUCTION
The History Craze
History for Comfort
Who Owns the Past?
History and Identity
History and Nationalism
Presenting History’s Bill
History Wars
History as a Guide and Friend
CONCLUSION
FURTHER READING
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
INTRODUCTION
HISTORY IS SOMETHING we all do, even if, like the man who discovered he was
writing prose, we do not always realize it. We want to make sense of our own
lives and often we wonder about our place in our own societies and how we got
to be here. So we tell ourselves stories, not always true ones, and we ask
questions about ourselves. Such stories and questions inevitably lead us to the
past. How did I grow up to be the person I am? Who were my parents? My
grandparents? As individuals, we are all, at least in part, products of our own
histories, which include our geographical place, our times, our social classes,
and our family backgrounds. I am a Canadian who has grown up in this country
and so have enjoyed an extraordinary period, unusual in much of the world’s
history, of peace, stability, and prosperity. That has surely shaped the ways in
which I look at the world, perhaps with more optimism about things getting
better than I might have if I had grown up in Afghanistan or Somalia. And I am
also a product of my parents’ and grandparents’ history. I grew up with some
knowledge, incomplete and fragmentary to be sure, of World War II, which my
father fought in, and of World War I, which drew in both my grandfathers.
We use history to understand ourselves, and we ought to use it to understand
others. If we find out that an acquaintance has suffered a catastrophe, that
knowledge helps us to avoid causing him or her pain. (If we find that they have
enjoyed great good luck, that may affect how we treat them in another way!) We
can never assume that we are all the same, and that is as true in business and
politics as it is in personal relations. How can we understand the often passionate
feelings of French nationalists in Quebec if we do not know something about the
past that has shaped and continues to shape them? Or the mixture of resentment
and pride that formerly poor provinces such as Alberta and Newfoundland feel
toward central Canada now that they have struck oil? In international affairs,
how can we understand the deep hostility between Palestinians and Israelis
without knowing something of their tragic conflicts?
History is bunk, Henry Ford famously said, and it is sometimes hard for us in
North America to recognize that history is not a dead subject. It does not lie
there safely in the past for us to look at when the mood takes us. History can be
helpful; it can also be very dangerous. It is wiser to think of history, not as a pile