Margaret MacMillan has a doctorate from St Antony's College, Oxford. Formerly Provost of Trinity College and Warden of St Antony's College, she is Professor of History at the University of Toronto. In 2017 she was made a Companion to the Order of Canada, and in 2018 she was appointed to the Order of the Companions of Honour. She has written several books including Peacemakers (also titled Paris, 1919), which won the BBC Four Samuel Johnson Prize, the Duff Cooper Prize, the Hessell-Tiltman Prize and eight other prizes throughout the world.

'Macmillan provides a highly readable narrative which combines detail and approachability, stuffed with acute observations and wonderful vignettes'