Historians and War: Assessing Causes and Consequences

Too often the history of war has been seeing as a limited, clearly defined branch of historical inquiry, the preserve of military historians more interested in battles, logistics or strategy than in social and cultural history. Yet war is deeply woven into human society and the relationship should be understood as a two-way one. The nature of particular societies—from values to political and social organization—affects the ways in which they approach and fight wars, while engagement in war can bring great change. This talk will examine such issues as how wars start and end, how we understand the experiences of those engaged in war, and how we assess the impact of war. It will also look at the perennial tension between the great forces shaping the past and the role and place of the individual.

Margaret MacMillan is an Honorary Fellow and former Warden of St Antony’s College, Oxford, and a Professor of History at the University of Toronto. Her books include Women of the Raj (1988, 2007); Paris 1919: Six Months that Changed the World (2001), for which she was the first woman to win the Samuel Johnson prize; and Nixon in China: Six Days that Changed the World (2007); The Uses and Abuses of History and The War That Ended Peace (2013). Her most recent book is History’s People (2016). She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and sits on the boards of the Mosaic Institute and the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, and the editorial boards of International History and First World War Studies. She also sits on the Advisory Board Institute for Historical Justice and Reconciliation and is a Trustee of the Rhodes Trust. In 2006 Professor MacMillan was invested as an Officer of the Order of Canada, and in 2016 she was appointed as a Companion of the Order of Canada.