What force moves the nations? Biographical historians and historians of separate nations understand this force as a power inherent in heroes and rulers. In their narration, events occur solely by the will of a Napoleon, an Alexander, or in general of the persons they describe. The answers given by this kind of historian to the question of what force causes events to happen are satisfactory only as long as there is but one historian to each event. As soon as historians of different nationalities and tendencies begin to describe the same event, the replies they give immediately lose all meaning,
...more
