The "Great Man" Theory of History

Two famous writers make presented us with opposite theories more or less the twist of leaders. Thomas Carlyle wrote most passionately: Universal accounting, the biography of what macrocosm has accomplished in this world, is at bottom the History of the big Men who get worked here. Heroes teach us obligation and wrong, he said; heroes give us broad inventions and discoveries. It is the great some who transform society; the multitude follows them. Modern democracy, he believed, has produced millions of befools who vote, other(a) men who go to Parliament and palaver, and, inevitably, the few who act. TOLSTOIS INFINITESIMAL ELEMENTS By contrast, expect Leo Tolstoi asserted that there is no greater fool than he who thinks he makes history and believes others when they assure him he does. non even a leader like catnap Bonaparte, admit to Tolstoi, has any part in determining the course of history. sleep was the tool of vast social forces beyond his control. Studying the laws of history, Tolstoi declared, we moldiness absolutely change the objects of our observation, leaving kings, ministers, and generals out of the account, and select for sphere field the homogenous, infinitesimal elements that regulate the masses. Both Carlyle and Tolstoi are interpretive program of long rosters of noteworthy writers.

Those who share Carlyles view of the role vie by men of genius tend also to be aristocratic in political viewpoint. Among the most enthusiastic have been men who believed that they themselves were to be among the great of history and that their indomitable wills could cudgel a ll obstacles-Hitler and Mussolini, for examp! le. By contrast, those who have agreed with Tolstoi have frequently been socialists. For socialism, as Marx taught it, was a crow of the masses over the few, and of supine historical tendencies over someone effort-socialism being the irresistible mark of... If you want to get a full essay, order it on our website: OrderCustomPaper.com

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