Antony Beevor’s latest article in The Telegraph discusses Ridley Scott’s upcoming film about Napoleon’s life and laments the fact that heroic figures like Napoleon give weight to the Great Man Theory. Beevor sees the idea that a few significant figures have outsized effects as “unfashionable and offensive.”
It is a shame that someone like Beevor, an excellent writer who has produced many magisterial history books about World War II, wrote such a historically misguided article.
What about Great Women?
One of Beevor’s points is that the Great Man Theory “carries the insulting implication that women cannot be great leaders.” But appreciating Napoleon or Caesar does not exclude recognition of the achievements of female rulers. Maria Theresa of Austria is considered by some to be “the most important ruler of the age of Enlightened Absolutism.” Queen Victoria’s rule defined one of Great Britain’s most vibrant eras. Catherine the Great played a key role in turning the Russian Empire into a great power.
Beevor’s assertion that female rulers are somehow “much less susceptible to the narcissistic narratives so favoured by male dictators” appears silly to anyone who’s read a biography of Cleopatra or Catherine de Medici.
To his credit, Beevor recognizes that individuals can have an outsized effect on history. He goes on to say, however, that “individuals alone have not created history. Threats to food or energy supplies have played their part in leading to revolution and war. So have differences over religion and its 20th-century successor, political ideology.”
