Includes bibliographical references and index.

"In this year's highly anticipated Massey Lectures, internationally acclaimed historian Margaret MacMillan gives her own personal selection of the great figures of the past, women and men, who have changed the course of history and even directed the currents of their times--and sometimes with huge consequences, as in the cases of Hitler, Stalin, and Thatcher. She also acknowledges people such as Richard Nixon and George W. Bush who stubbornly went their own ways, often in defiance of their own societies. Then there are those like Samuel de Champlain, the dreamers, explorers, or adventurers who stand out in history for who they were as much as for what they did. Finally, there are the observers, such as Michel de Montaigne, who kept the notes and diaries that bring the past to life for us. History's People is about the important and complex relationship between biography and history, individuals and their times, and the transformative moments that have shaped the world today."--