War: How Conflict Shaped Us
CBC Books | | Posted: August 21, 2020 7:59 PM | Last Updated: December 1, 2020
Margaret MacMillan
War--its imprint in our lives and our memories — is all around us, from the metaphors we use to the names on our maps. As books, movies, and television series show, we are drawn to the history and depiction of war. Yet we nevertheless like to think of war as an aberration, as the breakdown of the normal state of peace. This is comforting but wrong. War is woven into the fabric of human civilization.
In this sweeping new book, international bestselling author and historian Margaret MacMillan analyzes the tangled history of war and society and our complicated feelings towards it and towards those who fight. It explores the ways in which changes in society have affected the nature of war and how in turn wars have changed the societies that fight them, including the ways in which women have been both participants in and the objects of war.
MacMillan's new book contains many revelations, such as war has often been good for science and innovation and in the 20th century it did much for the position of women in many societies. But throughout, it forces the reader to reflect on the ways in which war is so intertwined with society, and the myriad reasons we fight. (From Allen Lane)
War: How Conflict Shaped Us was the only Canadian book on the New York Times' list of notable books of 2020.
MacMillan is a historian, and an emeritus professor of international history at Oxford University and professor of history at the University of Toronto. She is the author of several books, including Paris 1919 and The War that Ended Peace. Paris 1919 won the Governor General's Literary Award for nonfiction in 2003. She gave the 2015 Massey Lectures, which were titled History's People.
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