In the study of economics, we can obtain different evaluations of a policy using the perspectives of customers, producers, and/or governments. In the study of biology, we must consider how different organisms respond to a change in environment. Similarly, in the study of history, leaders both make events, and events in turn make leaders. It is the choices we make in the narrative retelling of an event or leader that shape our understanding of which has the stronger influence. Thus, in order to determine whether it is an event or leader that has the stronger determining force in a historical setting, we must compare and weigh the degree of influence we understand each to have.

       This essay will establish that our bias in understanding events or leaders as active or passive is the determining force in answering the question. For the sake of the argument, points of view can be considered as either conscious or unconscious. Conscious points of view are formed by our wants, desires, or fears, while unconscious ones are fixed by our social status, historical time period, or gender—characteristics that are hard to change.

       An example that illustrates the conscious point of view considers the 16th president of the US. When it comes to deciding the relationship between Abraham Lincoln, the end of slavery, and the impact of the Radical Republicans, there are two main conclusions: it was Lincoln who advanced the rights of African Americans or the work of his political opponents within the Republican party. Lincoln’s Republican supporters would argue that it was he who was responsible, as he issued the Emancipation Proclamation and pushed for the establishment of the Thirteenth Amendment—the two most important orders that supported the anti-slavery cause. In this perspective, the leader, Abraham Lincoln, made the event, which was the ending of slavery. This is illustrated in William Henry Herndon’s Abraham Lincoln: The True Story of a Great Life: “……he who was destined to be an immortal emancipator, was steadily and unconsciously nearing the great trails of his life.”[1] The lofty description of Lincoln as an “immortal emancipator” demonstrates the author’s conscious point of view of Lincoln. The author’s bias as a law partner, biographer of the president, and a member of the new Republican Party, ensures he would view him as a great leader of the people.[2] However, Lincoln’s political enemies—both abolitionists and Radical Republicans—would not agree with Herndon and others’ proclaimed greatness of Lincoln. For example, Henry Winter Davis, a Radical Republican who was particularly honored for his devotion to emancipation, is just one example of a leader within the party, who, from the perspective of this faction, was seen as more noble and influential than Lincoln in advancing the rights of slaves and freemen. This can be seen in John A.J. Creswell’s commemoration of Davis at his funeral when he said, “His crowning Glory was his leadership of the emancipation movement in Maryland. He hated slavery……He remembered the lessons of this youth, and his heart rebelled against the injustices of the system.” Like Herndon, Creswell was a supporter of the Radical Republican Party, and because of his political affiliation, his bias formed a different kind of conscious perspective: that it was the work of the Radical Republicans and not Lincoln that led to emancipation.

Another point of view that influences the way we answer this question are the “unconscious” characteristics of a historical event and the way we evaluate it. An example that supports this point is the case of Alexander the Great. The word “Great” provides a hint as to why he is controversial: from varied points of view, the extent of his greatness differs according to the source and the unconscious characteristics that influence its account. These attributes lead to different conclusions about the event-leader relationship. According to historian Howard Spodek, “Alexander succeeded to the throne without opposition and continued his father’s career of conquest. Over the next 12 years, his disciplined army traversed some 22,000 miles, conquering lands that stretched from Egypt in the west to the Indus River in the east.”[3] If using this historical depiction, contemporary historians would likely conclude that Alexander the Great was influential and positively contributed to a world that was more efficient and more closely connected. For example, this view was shared by Waldemar Heckel and Lawrence A. Tritle in Alexander the Great: A New History, where they stated that “Conquering an empire is the work of great men, and few compare with Alexander.”[4] Moreover, Michael Wood, in In the Footsteps of Alexander the Great: A Journey from Greece to Asia, praised Alexander even more extravagantly: “……the myth of history’s greatest conquerors, Alexander the Great. It was by common consent one of the greatest events in the history of the world, opening up West and East for the first time; an extraordinary tale of bravery, and cruelty, endurance, and excess……” The unconscious point of view here is the historical time period. Since the authors of these statements are all contemporary historians or history professors, they would likely value and assess the significance of Alexander according to his overall contribution to historical progress. This leads to a somewhat biased and decorative complement for Alexander. However, if we put ourselves in the shoes of the Persian civilians or other innocent people who had their homeland conquered, we would see an utterly different Alexander. For example, in one battle Alexander marched from Pelion (near modern Korçë, Albania) in Illyria to Thebes for more than 200 miles because his political opponents made rumors of his death. In the battle, more than 6000 people were killed and the survivors were sold into slavery.[5] Innocent civilians accounted for the majority of victims, and similar battles happened frequently when Alexander was the general. Sufferers of Alexander’s battle would have trouble understanding the later legacy of Alexander—with many of them not living to see its impacts and refusing to recognize him as a leader. Thus, restricted by their historical time period and personal circumstance, they would see Alexander as cruel and selfless, and would be unwilling to credit him as a historical leader.

       We can conclude that both the conscious and unconscious points of view are biases, and these biases can form due to subjective or objective factors. However, apart from the individuals themselves, biases can also be created and instilled in individuals by their leaders, and sometimes this is due to a leader’s purposeful actions.

       Propaganda, advertisements, and speeches— all of these are useful methods for leaders to alter public opinion. One of the most notorious and astonishingly effective users of propaganda was Adolf Hitler. In his 1924 memoir, Mein Kampf, Hitler’s deep understanding of the fears and suffering of the German public was evident: “The art of propaganda lies in understanding the emotional ideas of the great masses and finding, through a psychologically correct form, the way to the attention and thence to the heart of the broad masses……The receptivity of the great masses is very limited, their intelligence is small, but their power of forgetting is enormous.”[6] Based on this knowledge, Hitler used a series of techniques for perfecting his propaganda, including revising textbooks, spreading slogans, and orating speeches.[7] He soon won political power in Germany, and the rise in Hitler’s popularity was the ultimate cause of the Holocaust and the invasion of various countries during WWII. As a result of the economic and political circumstances of the nation and the influence of Hitler’s propaganda, the German people’s point of view was altered as they changed their loyalty from the Weimar Republic to the Nazi state. With this change came new beliefs and expectations for their country. And in this case, Hitler had the goal of achieving his political objectives by brainwashing the public and directly shaping their opinion of him as a leader. The success of this propaganda effort created both misinformation and bias among the public, leading people, including minors in the Hitler Youth to issue the statement, “The Führer is always right .”[8]

       So far we have seen the importance of identifying the cause of biases by discussing points of view that shape how people narrate the leader-event relationship. However, spotting biases is a critical skill that is important even outside judging the leader-event debate. Spotting the bias that exists in historical material enables us to avoid carrying the bias ourselves, and by doing so keeps us as neutral and objective as possible. A slightly ironic example will illustrate this statement. A famous aphorism goes: “History is written by the victors”. This statement is commonly believed to come from Winston Churchill. On the other hand, some historians argue that it is an original utterance made by Hermann Goring, a leader of Nazi Germany and an enemy of Churchill during WWII. Supporters of either Churchill or Goring will attribute the originality of the statement to whomever they support. However, on closer inspection, the adage has actually existed in multiple cultures and was developed far earlier than either Churchill or Goring’s lifetime.[9] In this case, if we are to identify the political beliefs of Churchill’s and Goring’s supporters as their conscious points of view, we will be able to question the reliability of their opinions. Therefore, we are more likely to trust the pieces of evidence that demonstrate that the adage was developed over time in different cultures, instead of attributing it to an individual.

       In conclusion, we have seen how the conscious and unconscious points of view can shape people’s narration of events and their opinions about the leader-event relationship. Moreover, the importance of identifying bias and their sources is also established—by doing so, we can become more neutral and identify more accurate historical sources.

[1] Herndon, William Henry. Abraham Lincoln: The True Story of a Great Life. D. Appleton, 1892.
[2] geni_family_tree. 《William Henry Herndon》. Accessed 20 June 2022 geni.com/people/William-Herndon/6000000004683435190.
[3] Howard Spodek，The World’s History  Combined Volume，Pearson (2014)
[4] Heckel, Waldemar, and Lawrence A. Tritle. Alexander the Great: A New History. John Wiley & Sons, 2011.
[5] 《Alexander the Great | Biography, Empire, Death, & Facts | Britannica》.Accessed 7 June 2022. britannica.com/biography/Alexander-the-Great.
6 Nazi Germany. 《Adolf Hitler on Propaganda (1924)》, June 7 2012 alphahistory.com/nazigermany/hitler-on-propaganda-1924/.
[7] Appleby, Kelsey Danielle. 《Controlling Information with Propaganda: Indoctrinating the Youth in Nazi Germany》. Dalhousie Journal of Interdisciplinary Management 9, 期 1 (2013年4月2日). ojs.library.dal.ca/djim/article/view/2013vol9Appleby.
[8] 《Wochenspruch der NSDAP》. Accessed June 24 2022

research.calvin.edu/german-propaganda-archive/ws.htm.
[9] Phelan, Matthew. 《The History of “History Is Written by the Victors”》. Slate, 2019年11月27日. slate.com/culture/2019/11/history-is-written-by-the-victors-quote-origin.html.