Notable Historians, Posters & Prints “M...-N...-O...-”
educational posters for social studies classrooms, home schools, and theme decor for office.

Thomas Macaulay
Machiavelli
Karl Marx
David McCullough

William Hardy McNeill
James M. McPherson
Jules Michelet

Thomas Babington, Lord Macaulay Giclee Print

Thomas Babington, 1st Baron Macaulay
b. 10-25-1800; Leicestershire, England
d. 12-28-1859

Thomas Babington Macaulay, a poet, historian and Whig politician, wrote extensively as an essayist and reviewer on British history.

Thomas Macaulay quotes ~
• “The measure of a man's real character is what he would do if he knew he would never be found out.”
• “I shall cheerfully bear the reproach of having descended below the dignity of history if I can succeed in placing before the English of the nineteenth century a true picture of the life of their ancestors.”
• “I would rather be poor in a cottage full of books than a king without the desire to read.”
• “Many politicians are in the habit of laying it down as a self-evident proposition that no people ought to be free till they are fit to use their freedom. The maxim is worthy of the fool in the old story who resolved not to go into the water till he had learned to swim.”
• “The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners.”
• “The puritan hated bear baiting, not because it gave pain to the bear, but because it gave pleasure to the spectators.”
• “There is only one cure for the evils which newly acquired freedom produces, and that cure is freedom.”
• “As civilization advances, poetry almost necessarily declines.”
• “Perhaps no person can be a poet, or even enjoy poetry, without a certain unsoundness of mind.”

Niccolo Machiavelli
b. 5-3-1469; Italy
d. 6-21-1527

Machiavell political science theories were informed by observation and reading ancient history texts. He also wrote an eight volume history book of the city-state Florence.

• The Art of War & The Prince by Machiavelli

Karl Marx
b. 5-5-1818; Germany
d. 3-14-1883; London

Karl Marx, a philosopher, political economist, historian, political theorist, sociologist, communist, and revolutionary, is credited with formulating the ideas that are the foundation of modern communism.

Marx summarized his approach in the first line of chapter one of The Communist Manifesto, published in 1848: "The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles."

Karl Marx quotes ~
• “The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.”
• “Art is always and everywhere the secret confession, and at the same time the immortal movement of its time.”
• “Capital is dead labor, which, vampire-like, lives only by sucking living labor, and lives the more, the more labor it sucks.”
• “From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs.”
• “In bourgeois society capital is independent and has individuality, while the living person is dependent and has no individuality.”
• “Necessity is blind until it becomes conscious. Freedom is the consciousness of necessity.”
• “Social progress can be measured by the social position of the female sex.”
• “Religion is the opium of the masses.”

• Marx : Selected Writings from 'Communist Manifesto', 'Wages, Price and Profit', 'Capital', 'Socialism: Utopian and Scientific

David McCullough
b. 7-7-1933; Pittsburgh, PA

Historian and author David McCullough said he “had no anticipation that [he] was going to write history, but [he] stumbled upon a story that [he] thought was powerful, exciting, and very worth telling.” He is also known for his narration of many television programs.

• John Adams by David McCullough

William Hardy McNeill
b. 10-31-1917; Vancouver, BC, Canada

Over the course of his career as a historian, teacher, and mentor, McNeill expounded the range of history and integrated it into an evolutionary worldview uniting physical, biological, and intellectual processes. Accordingly, The Pursuit of Truth explores the personal and professional life of a man who affected the way a core academic discipline has been taught and understood in America. (book description)

James M. McPherson
b. 10-11-1936; Valley City, North Dakota

Historian and professor James M. McPherson focuses on the American Civil War historian, receiving the Pulitzer Prize for Battle Cry of Freedom.

He is known for lobbying on behalf of the preservation of Civil War battlefields such as working to prevent the construction of a commercial theme park at the Manassas battlefield.

Jules Michelet
b. 8-21-1798; Paris
d. 2-9-1874

Jules Michelet is best remembered for his insistence that history should concentrate on “the people, and not only its leaders or its institutions”, and one of the first historians to apply these liberal principles to historical scholarship.

Theodor Mommsen
b. 11-30-1817; Schleswig (Germany)
d. 11-1-1903; Charlottenburg, German Empire

Theodor Mommsen was a classical scholar, historian, jurist, journalist, politician, archaeologist, and writer whose work regarding Roman history is still of fundamental importance for contemporary research.

Mommsen received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1902 “the greatest living master of the art of historical writing, with special reference to his monumental work, A History of Rome.”

Lewis Mumford
b. 10-19-1895; Flushing, Queens, NY
d. 1-26-1990; Amenia, NY

Historian and philosopher of technology and science, Lewis Mumford believed that “what defined humanity, what set human beings apart from other animals, was not primarily our use of tools (technology) but our use of language (symbols).”

• Technics and Civilization

John G. Neihardt
b. 1-8-1881; Sharpsburg, IL
d. 11-24-1973; Columbia, MO

Author and poet John Gneisenau Neihardt was also an amateur historian and ethnographer who preserved memories of the Native Americans and the pioneer past. He was the Nebraska State Poet Laureate from 1921 until his death and also a professor at the University of Nebraska and the University of Missouri.

John Neihardt quotes ~
• “The only cowards are sinners; fighting the fight is all.”
• “Everything the Power of the World does is in a circle. The Sky is round and I have heard that the earth is round like a ball and so are all the stars. The Wind, in its greatest power, whirls. Birds make their nests in circles. ... The sun comes forth and goes down again in a circle. The moon does the same, and both are round. Even the seasons form a great circle in their changing, and always come back again to where they were.” - Black Elk Speaks