History’s People: Personalities and the Past by Margaret MacMillan – review

Irreverent and highly enjoyable – history as seen by the people who were there

Two of Otto von Bismarck’s house guests once stood in awe, writes Margaret MacMillan, contemplating his chamber pot. Like everything else about the man, it was outsize.

The anecdote nicely exemplifies MacMillan’s approach to greatness. She acknowledges its existence, but isn’t cowed by it. Her summary of Bismarck’s career, in this book, concedes that it was largely thanks to his tremendous will and his political adroitness that Germany was created, but it also shows him acting like a difficult child, slamming doors and announcing that his latest row with the kaiser had given him such a headache he was likely to die of it.

Continue reading...