An apology offered and, equally important, received is a step towards reconciliation and, sometimes, recompense. Without that process, hurts can rankle and fester and erupt into their own hatreds and wrongdoings.
Margaret MacmillanRead
If you read about millions of people doing this and millions of people doing that, history seems remote and inaccessible.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote emphasizes the disconnect individuals may feel when viewing history as a collection of distant events rather than relatable experiences.
Margaret Macmillan's quote highlights how the vastness of history, filled with accounts of millions of people, can create a perception of it being remote and hard to connect with. It suggests that history is not just a series of events but a shared human experience that is accessible and relevant to our lives, encouraging us to find personal connections within historical narratives.
Themes
HistoryConnectionRelevanceHuman Experience
In practice
Example use cases
In a lecture about the importance of studying history and its relevance to today's world.
More from Margaret Macmillan
All quotes βClimate change respects no borders.
Margaret MacmillanRead
War is a crucial, deeply ingrained part of human history. It has to be understood.
Margaret MacmillanRead
There was that argument that if we had more women in positions of authority, the world would be a nicer place. And then we got Golda Meir, Margaret Thatcher, Sirimavo Bandaranaike, Indira Gandhi. When women become acclimatised to war, they can become every bit as ruthless as men.
Margaret MacmillanRead
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 MacmillanRead
If we don't take responsibility for each other, it seems to me the future is going to be even bleaker.
Margaret MacmillanRead
Similar quotes
Can any one be so indifferent or idle as not to care to know by what means, and under what kind of polity, almost the whole inhabited world was conquered and_x000D_ brought under the dominion of the single city of Rome, and that too within a period of not quite fifty-three years?
PolybiusRead
History never looks like history when you are living through it. It always looks confusing and messy, and it always feels uncomfortable.
John W. GardnerRead
When I started working on women's history about thirty years ago, the field did not exist. People didn't think that women had a history worth knowing.
Gerda LernerRead
The rise of African nations concurrent with the spread of the Nation of Islam and the civil rights movement gave black America a burst of pride over and above anything they had had since the decline of the movement of Marcus Garvey.
John Henrik ClarkeRead
One thing that struck me in my study of history is how people are excluded. I don't mean just racial minorities or women. Pretty much all poor people who don't have documents are excluded from history and its records. People who were illiterate usually didn't leave any primary documents.
Min Jin LeeRead
Just by my home is an entrance to the sewers they used in the Warsaw uprising. I grew up knowing people died down there. Warsaw was once a battleground; then it became a morgue. It's a city littered with ghosts. And that never left me.
Pawel PawlikowskiRead