Dangerous Games: The Uses and Abuses of History (Modern Library Chronicles) [Hardcover]

In this slim but important volume, historian Margaret MacMillan sets out to challenge those who use or misuse history for their own purposes. Few escape her glance, from the Chinese who cultivate a sense of victimization even now that they have risen to the status of economic superpower (and whose leaders cite a sign that never existed in Shanghai, denying entrance to a park to Chinese and dogs) to both Palestinians and Israelis, quarreling over the question of "who was here first" with reference to the lands now under Israeli authority.

MacMillan's two most recent works (one about the Versailles Treaty of 1919; the other about Nixon and Mao) have given her tremendous insight into the way history is used and abused in geopolitical and political conflicts around the world. Bad history, she writes, tells only parts of complex stories, is selective, misleading and can lead to the creation of national 'myths' that hold their own dangers. She uses examples to bolster every point, such as the Serbian myths surrounding the defeat of Prince Lazar, their national hero, by Ottoman Turks at the battle of Kosovo in 1389. In fact, MacMillan points out, Lazar was simply one Serb prince (not a national leader); while he was killed, the battle was widely viewed as a draw and even claimed by Serbs at the time as a victory; and far from marking the end of Serb independence, an independent Serbia remained for decades. The Orthodox church used Lazar's death to bolster the myth of a resistance to Turkish rule for centuries; in the 19th century, when that myth collided with the emergence of nationalism across Europe, the result was not only the bloody conflicts in the former Yugoslavia but also one of the triggering events of the still-bloodier World War I.

MacMillan's command of her facts, from the well known to the most obscure, make this a convincing and lively read. Still, she's treading on perilous ground by challenging such cherished myths and pointing out how historical facts have been distorted to support them. It doesn't matter that she's an equal-opportunity critic (Both Palestinians and Israelis get their share of criticism for manipulating the facts in the ongoing "who was here first" argument.) Her argument is straightforward and yet provocative: only by recognizing that the stories we may like to tell ourselves aren't always the true or complete ones do we have a chance to take advantage of what history has to teach us: that others have myths that they, too, cherish; that we can and should question our values and convictions from time to time, and that the result will be a better understanding of ourselves and our place in the world.

"It can be dangerous to question the stories people tell about themselves because so much of our identity is both shaped by and bound up with our history," MacMillan writes. (Indeed, just take a look at Sacred Geography: A Tale of Murder and Archeology in the Holy Land for evidence.) That doesn't stop MacMillan from tackling a wide array of battles waged in the 'history wars' that have been just as hotly contested as those in the better-known 'culture war'.

The result is a valuable book for anyone who is interested in reading history and going beyond the 'what', 'who' and 'why' of the events that happened to broader questions. What history is written, by whom and for what purpose? What assumptions do historians make when they write? How are their works received by their audiences? Anyone intrigued by these questions will find much to mull over in this book. If your world view is black and white, rather than shades of grey, you may find less to admire.

Recommended for additional reading on a theme related to this: The Heritage Crusade and the Spoils of History

MacMillan is very smart. More important, she's very wise. That latter category informs all the thinking in this book and is what makes it well worth reading. (There's an oddly cranky review from earlier this month posted here. I don't understand it and can't square it with the book I read.)
The book tells us why the study of history is important. Part of the answer to that question is what history is - it's not just a table of names and dates: they are necessary, but not sufficient. Part is how history has been used and abused over time.
The learning in this book can be summarized in two phrases. The first is that you can't understand the news unless you understand the history. MacMillan shows this in her treatment of The Battle of Kosovo, which was a very different thing in 1389, when it happened and in 1989, when Serbian president Milosevic gave a speech marking the battle's 600th anniversary and began the process of unleashing the forces that would turn the former Yugoslavia into a slaughterhouse. The second, which is almost a corollary of the first, is her mention of the bewildering effect of living in the Soviet Union of the 1930s and 40s, where the rewriting of recent history of the revolution and its aftermath was an ongoing industry. She notes dryly that it can be disorienting to live in a country with an unpredictable past.
The book, between flanking chapters of the history craze and history as a guide, discusses the abuses of history as a source of comfort, as a property to be controlled, as a tool in shaping identity, as a catalyst of nationalism, and as a source of grievances (and we all know what kinds of actions unaddressed grievances can lead to in our modern world). She also addresses history as a battle in the culture wars going on almost everywhere.
As I read this book, it seemed to me to be more of an edited transcript of a lecture than something originally intended as a written work. Sure enough, the notes show that this is exactly what it is.
As a lecture, it is quite good. Wide-ranging, stimulating, articulate (MacMillan wrinkles her nose - rightly in my view - at historians who write [sometimes deliberately] in difficult prose), and clear-eyed. She spots the issues, nails the manipulators, and shows what's going on behind the curtain of the show.
As a book, it's way too short - about 170 pages - and therefore way too surfacy. Every time she focused in on a topic or an event, I was pleased, only to sigh as she skittered across the top of it to the next one. As an op-ed piece, or even a magazine article, this would have been fine, but in a book, I wanted more depth.
So this is a good, even an important, introduction to an issue that every educated person should view with concern. History, like all components of critical thinking, is vitally important, necessary even, for democratic government to work. The stories of history shape beliefs and the beliefs bring about and justify action.
Of course the people who most need to read and understand this book are the ones least likely to look at it. Ignorance usually protects itself with thick walls pierced by vigilantly guarded gates. The lobotomization of the populace of this and other countries by those who should be educating and informing them will doubtless continue as long as there is money to be made and power to be generated by the process. MacMillan and her like are fighting against a trend. It's important to all of us that they succeed.

MacMillan writes a decent book, and she makes some good points about the way history ought to be used -- to teach "humility, skepticism and awareness of ourselves" -- and how it is too often abused to further political and cultural agendas. No quibble here, and anyone with any intellectual integrity would agree. But there's an irony here, because good historians should look for complexity and attempt to explain ambiguity, yet MacMillan too often picks some very low hanging fruit to make her argument, and as a result we read about culture war excesses from the right and the left which are all easy targets for a book on the politicization of history. Far more interesting would be to explore how ideology shapes the more credible or mainstream historical narratives that too often determine the fate of nations. How, for example, does the "city on a hill" narrative shape public policy in America? Or why has the United States for years been driven by the notion that capital and capital alone creates wealth? Instead, we hear, once again, about the Enola Gay controversy or about the usual suspects in ethnocentric history (though she seems to have a very broad and negative brushstroke when discussing ethnic history). So this is a book that will confirm the righteousness of all who are fed up with the obvious and well-known abuses of history. But we've all probably read the same arguments in magazines and op-ed pages. A more compelling book would ask tougher questions about the subtle and profound ways that history shapes history.