Individual

For my part, I would say all the human being together including the famous and the non-famous. Therefore, I dissent with the statement above. In my opinion, the study of history needs to place emphasis both on individuals and groups of people whose identities have long been forgotten. Either of them is crucial to the history of human being. The study of history should pay much attention to individuals because it was those famous few who directed the orientation for the human being. As for me, the few famous is like the person who could find the key to the door of the next era. They created a period of history and others whose identities have long been forgotten followed to write the history. Without the brilliant brain, the history would have kept steping around. Take the history of modern architecture as an illustration. Le Corbusier, known as the creater and the leader of the revolution of architecture in the beginning of 20th century, is an excellent example to support that. Before Le Corbusier, thousands and hundreds of people had already found that the classical styles were out of date and the society wanted a new kind of forms. However, from Taltelin to Gropius, none of them got the key to the door. It was Le Corbusier, the designer of Villa De Savoy, firstly claimed the five rules of the new architecture, which was known as modern architecture nowadays. A small step of an individual became a big step of the human being. After the declamation of his orders, architects all over the world began to practise, all of them, together with Le Corbusier, made the history of the modern architecture and changed the cities we live in. Thus, Le Corbusier was so important that no critics or historians would neglect him. The life of him the concise edition of the history of modern architecture. Hence, there is no doubt that we should put much emphasis on individuals such as Le Corbusier because most of they are too important to be omitted. Also, as a discipline, the essentiality of the history would not allow people to place too much emphasis on groups of people. History is history. It is not the exact copy of the past but a more abstract and shorter edition. In order to be efficient, people should choose a certain people or a certain period of time which is representative of the era they study on. Again take Le Corbusier as an example. It is known to us that there have been so many architects in the history of modern architecture, such as Mies Von De Rohe, Floyd Wright, Gropius, I M Pei and so on. But when comes to the modern architecture, the first person one mentions will always be Le Corbusier. Because he was the leader of the era and he was representative of all the other architects, even though each of them was definitely quite different from each other. No critics has enough time to analyze each of them. We need to choose the most important one. Therefore, the reason why the study of history alway places emphasis on individuals is the limitation of the discipline itself. Finally, even much emphasis is put on individuals, no one can ignore the fundamentality of the people who helped to make the history. There is a memorial park in Washington. Each of the soldier who died in the way for US will be sent here and forever be memorized by everyone and the government has paid much attention to these honorable families. In World War Two, General Patton would always walk about the cemetry of his soldiers after a skirmish. He said it was these soldiers who had kept the honor of human being and the kudos of US. After the war, when he came back to US, Patton always told his students in Western Point Military School that the past was established by the nonknown. Indeed, in the history book only the name of Patton was kept, while no one would forget the people who helped to make the history. In sum, I disagree with the speaker's statement. On the one hand, the individuals are essential to the history of human being; on the other hand, those people who devoted themselves to the human being would be remembered by the society. Both of them are crucial to the honor of history.