谢谢大家 帮我改改吧 T.T issue 48

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I generally agree with the speaker's claim that the charisma of several prominent leaders have been too much emphasized and the power of the mass has been neglected in the study of history no matter in the courses of graduated or undergraduated studies or in the annalistic researches. To begin with, it is the changes of demographical, cultural or economical elements in long term that shape the main stream of the whole society. Moreover, outstanding leaders must fit into this trend in order to lead a successful revolution. It is the mass who select the leader and determine the destiny of the leader they have selected.

Admittedly, it is the leaders who rule the world and make the final decision of the important events. However, this decisions roots from the normal citizens and without the implementation by them, it is only a daydream. The great man theory is the thought that reflects this kind of history view which explains the history by the impact of great man. For example, the proponents of this theory would like to study the Second World War by reading the biography of Sir Winston Churchill, Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, etc. This ideology contributes the watershed sociopolitical event to the charisma of limited leader level without focusing on the mass power.




However, the defense of "great man theory” was rare in the recent decades. Historians begin to accept a view that the scientific, technological, and demographical changes determine the direction of development in a society. It is a shallow and narrow manner that the specialists research the history according to several leaders especially when the leadership is determined by his social status. The people’s history view is being be accepted by increasing more historians. After all, the leader’s political viewpoint stems from and influences by complex social revolution in the long run. The leader is just a representive of mass with the ability of leadership. If his political decision is on the opposite side of the most population of this country, he will be repelled and substituted by another leader who is selected by the mass.

Besides, too much adoration for the political leaders may eventually lead to adverse personality cult. Some people may argue that erecting positive example is a good way to inspire people and cheer up miserable persons. However, in the sense of history study, we need to evaluate a person
unbiasedly instead of injecting political fever to the normal people who is incline to be affected by agitative speech of the lubricious politician. I concede the positive image of great people is powerful, but the ultimate aim of history study is to learn the reason of deficiency and make a better society. In order to meet this end, we need to judge the outstanding persons objectively instead of putting them in limelight forever.


The history of world is not the biography of the great man. Instead, according to Karl Marx, the motive forces in history is determined by the massive social forces at play in "class struggles" .The great man theory is no longer justifiable nowadays, for increasingly more public affairs are conduct internationally by international political groups. I strongly recommend that historians focus on the study of massive persons instead of the outstanding persons for the reason I discussed before.