Margaret MacMillan

For the nursery education pioneer, see Margaret McMillan.

Margaret Olwen MacMillan, OC (born 1943 in Toronto, Ontario) is a historian and professor at the University of Oxford, where she is Warden of St Antony's College. She is former provost of Trinity College and professor of history at the University of Toronto and previously at Ryerson University. A leading expert on history and international relations, MacMillan is a frequent commentator in the media.

Family

Margaret MacMillan was born to Dr. Robert MacMillan and Eluned Carey Evans. Her maternal grandfather was Dr. Thomas John Carey Evans of the Indian Medical Service. The senior Evans served as personal physician to Rufus Isaacs, 1st Marquess of Reading during the latter's term as Viceroy of India (1921–1926). Her maternal grandmother, Olwen Elizabeth Lloyd George, was a daughter of David Lloyd George, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and his first wife Margaret Owen.

Career

MacMillan received an Honours B.A. in history from the University of Toronto (attending Trinity College, where she would later become Provost) and a B.Phil. in Politics and D.Phil. (1974) at Oxford University (attending St Hilda's College and later St Antony's College, where she became Warden in 2007). Her doctoral dissertation, also completed at Oxford, was on the social and political perspectives of the British in India. From 1975 to 2002 she was a professor of history at Ryerson University in Toronto, including five years as department chair. She is the author of Women of the Raj, a selection of the "History Book Club." In addition to numerous articles and reviews on a variety of Canadian and world affairs, MacMillan has co-edited books dealing with Canada's international relations, including with NATO, and with Canadian-Australian relations. From 1995 to 2003, MacMillan co-edited the International Journal, published by the Canadian Institute of International Affairs. Since 1995, she has served as a member of the National Board of Directors of the CIIA. She was the Young Memorial Visitor at Royal Military College of Canada in 2004 and delivered the J.D. Young Memorial Lecture on November 24, 2004.

MacMillan's research has focused on the British Empire in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and on international relations in the twentieth century. Over the course of her career, she has taught a range of courses on the history of international relations. MacMillan served as Provost of Trinity College at the University of Toronto from 2002-2007. She was appointed Warden of St Antony's College at Oxford University in 2007. She sits on the European Advisory Board of Princeton University Press.

She currently also serves as a member of the Advisory Board of the Institute for Historical Justice and Reconciliation.

Recognition and honours

Her most successful work is Peacemakers: The Paris Peace Conference of 1919 and Its Attempt to End War, also published as Paris 1919: Six Months That Changed the World. Peacemakers won the Duff Cooper Prize for outstanding literary work in the field of history, biography or politics; the Hessell-Tiltman Prize for History; the prestigious Samuel Johnson Prize for the best work of non-fiction published in the United Kingdom and the 2003 Governor General's Literary Award in Canada. MacMillan has served on the boards of the Canadian Institute for International Affairs, the Atlantic Council of Canada, the Ontario Heritage Foundation, Historica, and the Churchill Society for the Advancement of Parliamentary Democracy (Canada). She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, an Honorary Fellow of St Antony's College, Oxford and a Senior Fellow of Massey College, University of Toronto. She has honorary degrees from the University of King's College, the Royal Military College of Canada student #S154, and Ryerson University, Toronto.

She was made an Officer of the Order of Canada in February, 2006.

Published works

• Women of the Raj. Thames and Hudson, 1988.
• Canada and NATO: Uneasy Past, Uncertain Future. Edited with David Sorenson. Waterloo, 1990.
• The Uneasy Century: International Relations 1900–1990. Kendall/Hunt, 1996.
• Parties Long Estranged: Canada and Australia in the Twentieth Century. Co-authored with Francine McKenzie. University of British Columbia, 2003.
• Peacemakers: The Paris Peace Conference of 1919 and Its Attempt to End War. John Murray, 2003.
  • Also published as: Paris 1919: Six Months that Changed the World.
• Canada's House: Rideau Hall and the Invention of a Canadian Home. Co-authored with Marjorie Harris and Anne L. Desjardins. Knopf Canada, 2004
• Nixon in China: The Week That Changed the World. Viking Canada, 2006.
  • Also published as: Nixon and Mao: The Week That Changed the World. Random House, 2007.
• The Uses and Abuses of History. Penguin Canada, 2008.
  • Also published as: Dangerous Games: the Uses and Abuses of History.
• The War That Ended Peace: The Road to 1914. Allen Lane, 2013.

External links

• Warden's page at St Antony's College, Oxford
• Radio interview with Margaret MacMillan
• Biography of Margaret Olwen MacMillan Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada.
• Margaret MacMillan to become Warden of St Antony's College at Oxford University
• Margaret MacMillan audio interview 12/2006
• Margaret MacMillan television interview 2009-11-13 with Allan Gregg on TVOntario
• Booknotes interview with MacMillan on Paris 1919: Six Months That Changed the World , December 29, 2002.
• In Depth interview with MacMillan, April 4, 2004
• C-SPAN Q&A interview with MacMillan, March 11, 2007