107 Quotes by Margaret MacMillan

The peacemakers were besieged by petitioners. One of the more glamorous was Queen Marie of Rumania, who arrived in Paris with a large entourage, a huge wardrobe and demands for about half of Hungary

In the fluid world of 1919, it was possible to dream of great change, or have nightmares about the collapse of order.

We can learn from history, but we can also deceive ourselves when we selectively take evidence from the past to justify what we have already made up our minds to do.

The glories of the past compensated for the imperfections of the present.

The delegates to the peace conference after World War I "tried to impose a rational order on an irrational world.

3053Geography also gave Russia a rich choice of potential enemies.

We should not be impressed when our leaders say firmly, "History teaches us" or "History will show that we were right."They can oversimplify and force inexact comparisons just as much as any of us can. Even the clever and the powerful (and the two are not necessarily the same) go confidently off down the wrong paths. It is useful, too, to be reminded, as a citizen, that those in positions of authority do not always know better.

For the sultan Wilhelm II had brought the latest German rifle, but when he tried to present it Abdul Hamid at first shrank away in terror thinking he was about to be assassinated. The heir to Suleiman the Magnificent who had made Europe tremble nearly four centuries earlier was a miserable despot so fearful of plots that he kept a eunuch near him whose sole duty was to take the first puff on each of his cigarettes.

History should not be written to make the present generation feel good but to remind us that human affairs are complicated.