Flies on the wall

Philip Ziegler reviews a collection of history essays

To invite 20 eminent historians to describe the world-changing event in history which they most wish they had witnessed is an ingenious publishing idea likely to produce an entertaining and even modestly instructive book. Happy evenings could be spent around the dinner table debating the choices and suggesting altematives. It is perhaps a reflection of contemporary society, for instance, that none of the historians chose to witness the Crucifixion or the Resurrection — the two events (or non-events) which above all shaped the Christian world. On the whole the historians have chosen their subjects with a view to elucidating the true facts rather than merely witnessing a sensational spectacle. Sometimes they reflect on the contribution they might have made if they had been there. ‘Perhaps I could have helped,’ reflects Margaret MacMillan: if she had been present at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919 she could have reminded the main protagonists that they should ‘use their own eyes and listen to their own advisers’.