By the start of August 1914, it was dawning on the British that a major war was about to break out on mainland Europe. Public opinion and, crucially, the cabinet was deeply divided on whether to intervene or stay out. — Margaret MacMillan Copy Share Image
Some might argue humans are hard-wired to fight. I don't agree: we are conscious beings who have the capacity to make decisions. — Margaret MacMillan Copy Share Image
I wish we could see understanding the First World War as a European issue, or even a global one, and not a nationalistic one. — Margaret MacMillan Copy Share Image
Theodore Roosevelt's policy to build a two-ocean navy confirmed that the old-style isolationism of the founders had not survived the modern, increasingly globalized world. — Margaret MacMillan Copy Share Image
Individual lives remind us that there is something called a common humanity and that, over the centuries, there have been people who have lived… — Margaret MacMillan Copy Share Image
The 1898 annexation of the Hawaiian Islands merely formally recognized what had long been American domination. — Margaret MacMillan Copy Share Image
“There are only two perfectly useless things in the world,” he quipped. “One is an appendix and the other is Poincaré!” — Margaret MacMillan Copy Share Image
“Nationalist movements often overlapped with economic and class issues: Rumanian and Ruthenian peasants, for example, challenged their Hungarian and Polish landlords.” — Margaret MacMillan Copy Share Image
How curious that such an outsize man, in physique as well as personality, should be remembered today mainly for giving his name to a… — Margaret MacMillan Copy Share Image
“Part of Nietzsche’s appeal was that it was easy to read a great deal into his work, and people including socialists, vegetarians, feminists, conservatives… — Margaret MacMillan Copy Share Image
If we do not, as historians, write the history of great events as well as the small stories that make up the past, others… — Margaret MacMillan Copy Share Image
Many in the English-speaking world came to agree with the Germans that the Treaty of Versailles, and the reparations in particular, were unjust, and… — Margaret MacMillan Copy Share Image
