Trump Is a Test for the ‘Great Man Theory’

Simon Kuper: “Modern historians tend to be wary of ascribing change to individuals. They are more likely to identify ‘the fish that changed the world’ (to quote the subtitle of Mark Kurlansky’s book Cod) than a human who did. Most historians prefer impersonal structural forces: geography for the French Annales school, economics for Marxists, technology for others, while there’s been a recent surge of interest in climate change and pandemics.”

“But having said all that, here comes Donald Trump. He provides the biggest test of Great Man theory in our lifetimes. His supporters, enemies and the man himself (‘I alone can fix it’) depict him as an agent of historical change. Are we all suffering from Trump Derangement Syndrome? Or will this individual really change history?”