issue48 恳请拍砖 留链必回

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48"The study of history places too much emphasis on individuals. The most significant events and trends in history were made possible not by the famous few, but by groups of people whose identities have long been forgotten."

提纲：
1 关注名人确实能够更好地研究历史
2 历史是不是由名人，而是群众创造的。
3 名人在历史中也有重要作用，如提出理论，领导作用，重大决策。

The speaker thought that the most significant events and trends in history were made by groups of people but not the famous few, so that the study of history should not emphasize too much to the famous people. I don’t agree with the claim.

First, studying on important individual can reach historical discoveries while it relative useless studying on groups of people. It does not work learning what groups of people do to get the key information. A famous individual always rises something leading groups of people, so it is important to put more attention to the famous few. Take the Great Wall for example, learning the decisions of the leaders make we know the reason of it’s existence. People just listen to the orders of the leaders and make the ideas true. The emperor wanted to build it to defend the enemies but if you turn to the groups of people, they may only claimed that it’s hard to built. In general, historians can study history better to focus on the famous few.

Second, though the famous few provide the ideas, events and trends in the history will not come out without the common people. A country can’t win a war just by commands of the general. Soldiers play the most important role in the war, so studying to common soldiers is necessary, too. Sometimes, maybe the commander sent an order but the angry soldiers resisted to obey, then studying the commander won’t help to search the truth about the war. The common soldiers fight in the battle and make the result out at last. This happened in other fields in history, so the history is not created by the famous few but by the groups of people. The efforts of the groups of people should not be underplayed.

Third, sometimes the famous few made decisions even influence the history, political leaders can change the relationships between two countries, then the people are often influenced. The famous few provide necessary principal and lead the others, make important decisions. Famous few, such as Galileo, Newton and Einstein should never be forgotten in the history of physics.

In sum, I think learning on famous few and groups of people are both important, but learning on the former can help studying better, for they influence the history in some way.