Margaret MacMillan: Thinking About War Before 1914

Margaret MacMillan delivers the second lecture of her Humanitas Visiting Professorship in War Studies at the University of Cambridge, 2013-2014.
strategicdialogue.org/humanitas
Humanitas is a series of Visiting Professorships at Oxford and Cambridge designed to bring leading academics, practitioners and scholars to both universities to address major themes in the arts, social sciences and humanities. Created by Lord Weidenfeld, the programme is managed and funded by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue and co-ordinated in Cambridge by the Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities (CRASSH) and in Oxford by the Humanities Division.

[@h.e.hazelhorst9838]

Another excellent lecture!

[@robertczar2576]

I love Margaret MacMillan's lectures. I an amateur enthusiast on European dynasties prior and through WWI. She has given me an objective view point and detailed information that most mainstream documentaries are lacking.

[@douglasphillips2021]

5🇬🇧🇬🇧

[@Doc_Tar]

The more of MacMillan's lectures I experience the closer I sense I get to understanding how sophisticated Europe went mad in the first half of the 20th century.

[@suzannederringer1607]

And it's going crazy again. Sadly.

[@markbass8492]

@@suzannederringer1607It’s gone, not going.

[@haridasshenoy8334]

Are they any different now. Being dictated by US and getting into loggerheads with Russia.

[@davidmackie8552]

What a sensible and erudite person!

[@garyb2392]

What an awesome talk! TY

[@mavisformula]

Another excellent lecture, I do enjoy them very much. The only disagreement I had is her comment regarding the British in the Boer War of 1899-1902. From all that I have read, they never fought in their red coat uniforms (as she stated regarding their heavy losses earlier on). They had discarded these in the Anglo-Sudan War a few years earlier and hadn't used them regularly since the 1880's. However they did suffer heavily against the Boers who were well-trained, well supplied and knew the land better and so could manoeuvre around, causing the necessity for the British to attach them head on.

[@PalofGrrr]

In the USMC the unwritten rule is: You dont have to like it...You just have to do it. that includes grad school If you think about it, that applies to a lot in life

[@DavidWilliams-hv7so]

Have watched all 3 of the lectures on this series. Now in the 21st century society has gone from being so abstract part of war to being part of war in an intimate instrument of war. We as a society were shocked at hearing about civilian attacks from the military and almost a disbelieve things like the Hallocost. To see it atrocious on TV each evening. Now we are all soldiers.

[@MrHmjg]

entertaining, never dull...

[@davidmackie8552]

And informative

[@f1refall]

I feel its worth adding, while discussing blockading germany & the impact on its civilian population, that Germany also aimed to do this to the English, although less effectively

[@mariannesuesli5680]

Such a delight to listen to her although it's a somehow bleak outlook

[@RobertWarren65]

Ah GA Henty - saved my primary school career! I owe that man the reading speed I later developed and the ability to summarise the book! Now I discover that the plot was all the same but it helped and I have lived in blissful ignorance throughout my life!!

[@nicklive66]

GA Henty. Still read his books now and then, along with Anthony Buckerage's.

[@Dav1Gv]

Henty's book about the Battle of Fredricksburg in the American Civil War did - sort of - have a different plot but I certainly don't blame Prof MacMillan for not reading all of these books.

[@ElizabethReategui]

Who's the first speaker? Can you tell me his name?

[@MrJohn3265]

prof richard evans

[@michaelsommers2356]

When quoting Garnet Wolseley, MacMillan should also have pointed out that he was the very model of a modern major general.

[@zeljkokuvara6145]

Yes, but only in matters vegetable, animal, and mineral

[@michaelsommers2356]

@@zeljkokuvara6145 But what else is there?

[@zeljkokuvara6145]

@@michaelsommers2356 matters mathematical, equations, both the simple and quadratical

[@michaelsommers2356]

@@zeljkokuvara6145 Maybe. But I know many cheerful facts about the square of the hypotenuse. So there!

[@zeljkokuvara6145]

@@michaelsommers2356 aaaa as Rumsfeld would say the known unknowns. But what about the unknown unknowns? What is sacred? Of what is the spirit made? What is worth living for, and what is worth dying for?

[@kellyanquoe]

here in 2020 remanants of fading power groups struggle while the great grands of musty dynasties party

[@RobertPaskulovich-fz1th]

How did invading Serbia turn out for Austria?

[@williambeaumont1312]

Darwin to blame for WW1 and WW2.

[@agneschamot7284]

Hahaha, really no clue about European history. I suggest all to read Sleepwalkers / Clark and then choose what really happend or what is agitation and propaganda of the Alies - who still hate Germany

[@jesuisravi]

the military mind: an oxymoron.