I remember when I was growing up my view of history was very 'great man' ie: History was mostly determined by the actions of politically/militarily/economically powerful individuals. And I've always held on to this a little bit.
I mean yes, the title is sexist, but the basic premises seems sound to me. Take Nazi Germany and world war II, perhaps the most well documented event in history (or one of them).
Given that Nazi Germany was a fascist state which responded to a hierarchy, then doesn't that mean that if Hitler had of seen the light or had a massive change of heart (Maybe a vision from God, like Joan of Arc, or someone simply put LSD in his tea), then he, a single powerful individual, could have caused great changes, yes?
If Hitler said:
'No, we are not going to invade Poland, or Czechoslovak, or Austria,' then the Wermarcht would not have invaded those countries, hence no WWII.
'I order that the Jews not be exterminated' Then the Holocaust would not have happened. If Himmler or Heydrich were insistent on carrying it out, he could have had them shot.
So right there, we have one man who's actions caused (and I argue could have avoided) two of the most impact events in human history. I mean what would the modern Geo political map look like without WWII, and hence no rise of American and Russian military/industry. Sure, America was always a big player, but would Russia have ever become the world superpower?
And even if they did, the Cold War might never have happened if Germany hadn't been invaded and nearly destroyed by the Allies.
Couldn't the same be said of people like Ceaser, Hannibal, Elizabeth I, Napoleon, etc?
So how and why is great man theory wrong, aside from being more aptly called 'Great Person Theory?'
One of my professors told me it was because it glamorizes war because it focuses on war, but this seems a poor argument. I think I just gave good reasons for how WWII was immensely impact. That's not glamorization, that's truth.
There's nothing wrong per se with focusing on specific people, and doing so is a perfectly valid means of examining history. Especially military history, where sometimes it really does come down to some guy. Or someone not getting said guy's plan and botching the job. (Goddamnit, Ney.) But it's not just that, see; it's the specific focus on such Great Men, usually to the exclusion of all others, that makes it iffy.
Further insight on this particular matter is always appreciated; for the meantime, here's a few previous threads exploring the Great Man theory:
I'm not an expert in WW2 so I'm not well placed to answer your questions and to what would have been the realistic outcome if he made those different choices, if it wouldn't have created other issues, prevented war and what have you. Or to speak with authority on the society and time that shaped him, his fellows and led to his rise and the decisions taken.
I also think there has been a misunderstanding, I don't think anyone argues that the decisions figures in power didn't matter but that what they did was shaped by their time. That, to use your example, Hitler didn't just come into being and create single-handily the conditions that led to WW2 and so on. If Hitler was born at a different time, different place, would he have shaped things as he did? Would Germany have been so different without Hitler or would the conditions have still been there? Is seeing things through the prism of Hitler as the "great man" a good way of understanding his actions, the actions of others, the era and the people of the time? Of why things worked and why others things didn't, of why certain decisions were taken?
My history lessons of youth were of great people shaping the world as well, it is an easy hook. People like reading about people, who doesn't love stories of great heroes and villains, figures of brilliance and incompetent fools who shaped the era? It is exciting and easy to understand, besides who doesn't take comfort in the idea they can shape their time or look to emulate such heroes?
In my era of speciality, what people remember are the characters, larger than life figures shaping the era. People come into the era because of the appeal of the characters they saw in games or the iconic novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms, men (women often get overlooked) who shaped their destiny and their era. In terms of actually understanding the era... it isn't overly helpful. The structural issues, the challenges they faced, the understanding of what people did and why is all skewed or misunderstood with the idea of great figures who can shape the world.
Let me take arguably "the great man" of the era, the warlord Cao Cao. From gentry family, grandson of a eunuch and Han officials, a Han official himself when the land collapsed into civil war and famine, he would go from small administrator into the figure who would unite most of the land. He was a brilliant commander with bold strategies and the ability to arrive before people expected, a very skilled political player who saw the need to take in the Han Emperor and use his legitimacy, a talented administrator who ended famine and restored order in the Central Plains, a scholar and a poet, lover. A brilliant if controversial figure (executions, treatment of the puppet Han Emperor Xian, brutality in Xu), he became the antagonist of the novel and in modern media can be portrayed as "the hero of chaos"
Just the sort of man to gain focus from people and as such a great figure it leads to becoming larger than life, almost mythical. A man who by sheer force of talent and personality did so much, portrayed as the calm, bold thinker who did what he had to do stereotype with a vision beyond others.
It is...interesting but it tells you nothing about him or the era. Cao Cao was all of the things I mentioned (till the myth part), he was a brilliant figure who had an impact but he was male and Han-Chinese which was requisite to have any chance of being a major warlord. He was also from a wealthy family with long ties to the Xiahou and Ding clans who would be supporters in the war, able to use family wealth to raise an army. Not something most of China would have been able to do. His wealth and status started his official career and helped ensure friendships with other young wealthy men like Yuan Shao, a key warlord of the era whose patronage gave Cao Cao his first positions as a warlord (Administrator of Dong then Governor of Yan) that provided a platform, Yuan Shao would also provide major military and political support in the rise.
Cao Cao had luck at key moments, surviving incidents that could easily have got him killed while he almost lost his base in Yan early on but famine broke the strength of the invading Lu Bu. Simply living a long time was very helpful whereas his son then grandson Pi and Rui would both die early creating problems for the dynasty Cao Pi founded. Not was it just Cao Cao: The famine solving? Taken on the advice of Zao Zhi and implementation by Ren Jun, two figures often forgotten despite being seen as key to the prosperity of his state. Taking in the Emperor? Advice from key minister Xun Yu. Calm? One wife Ding divorced him after Cao Cao's inability to keep it in his pants (among other errors) saw the recently surrendered warlord Zhang Xiu revolt and his eldest son Cao Ang (among others) killed, her eventual successor Lady Bian called him a hothead, his advisers were known to have to handle his moods. Even the brilliance becomes an exaggerated myth, Cao Cao made a ton of errors that he got away with but gets overlooked, taking the fight to Dong Zhuo, fighting the Qiongzhou Turbans in open battle, the careless handling of Zhang Xiu, trying to frame Yuan Shao as a traitor then having to resign his newly gained rank in the backlash, his brutal wars in Xu. All forgotten (or in Xu's case, "he had to do it")
Cao Cao was shaped by his time as the assessor Xu Shao perhaps not overly complimentary put it in Cao Cao's youth "a good servant in time of peace, a dangerous chieftain in time of trouble". Cao Cao didn't create the civil war, a number of long-standing issues (gentry vs eunuch tensions, broken tax system) and short term fires (massacres at capital, Dong Zhuo's arrival changing rules of the game) created it, if he had lived in a time of peace then Cao Cao would have had a different life.
He spent his youth as other wealthy untouchable men, like the Yuan's, did in sports and being a bit of thuggish man about town while attitudes towards things like strictness in law reflect thinking of the time about how things had gone wrong for the Han. He also tried to shape attitudes like being more open on recruitment and less reliant on virtue but he lost such battles with senior figures at court like Cui Yan.
He failed unification which had huge consequences on his reputation because, though credit to his opponents is due, the south had quietly benefited from the build-up of the populace and Han-Chinese during the decline of the Han as people moved across the Yangtze to opportunity, escape from the laws and safety. It provided a platform for the Sun family to build a sustainable state protected by the rivers while in the west, the much-travelled warlord Liu Bei would set up on the proverbial land of milk, honey and strange figures of Yi shielded by the mountains of Hanzhong with its treacherous mountain roads.
If Cao Cao had been born a generation later? The opportunities that came when the land split completely had gone, the generation that came after would face were different from the ones Cao Cao faced and it is hard to see how he would have been able to overcome the fundamental challenges. Would Cao Cao's way of thinking have been shaped by a new wave of thinking that was going on during the reigns of his successors that would have major political implications?
Focusing on Cao Cao as the manifest destiny changer warps our understanding of him, his society and times but also downplays others. Those who helped him, giving their lives and their talents to his side, people who were needed to fight, govern, to provide support and friendship. Or those who opposed him, both those that would fail and die in the attempt and those who would manage to fight on, to those who considered surrender and those who refused to give ground to them. Or those for whom simply these were not the considerations because they were not in a position where that mattered due to gender or wealth. Why they took the decisions they made, what could have changed, why things fell out the way they did.
It also warps our sense of those who came after, if Cao Cao could do all he did with his talents then why couldn't those that came after? His sons and successors? Did they lack talent and character leading to the fall of their dynasty to the Sima or were they also impressive figures but facing very different challenges that couldn't simply be "great manned"? Opposing figures like Shu-Han chancellor Zhuge Liang of the next generation, his five campaigns gained two towns, was this a reflection of inability since he failed to shape the era or simply the resource gaps as too large and expectations of what could be done in his time had to be different from Cao Cao's earlier time?