A Matter of Perspective: Reflections on Conflicting Views of History
If the study of history is a matter of perspective, then so is the question of whether it is better to contemplate history from a personal perspective, or from the vantage point of the great and powerful. Irene Nemirovsky’s Suite Francaise, and Charles de Gaulle: A Brief Biography with Documents represent two vastly different viewpoints. Charles Cogan’s 1996 biography features never-before-seen primary sources and recounts the life of a man whose political fortunes were part and parcel of French post-war history. Thomas Carlyle’s “Great Man Theory” of history (an inheritor of Plutarch’s “exemplary lives” model) was a remnant of ...
