The Great Man theory of history seems an idea whose time has gone, although candidates have lately sprung up in Russia, China, and America. The self-fashioned commander embodies his own nation’s identity, and indeed all things to all men, within a legendary pantheon across the centuries: Alcibiades, Napoleon, Mao Zedong. The qualities required include “command presence” defined as occupying more space in a room than one’s actual size; an exalted reputation leavened with flashes of the common touch; a vaguely genealogical mystique; and an oracular rhetorical style of speech in an awareness that words may matter most of all. From boyhood on, something informs such personalities that greatness beckons, yet flaws, sometimes tragic, at other times merely human, will be revealed.
A distinctively unforgettable physical appearance is required. Arthur Herman opens his massive, unfailingly evocative biography Douglas MacArthur: American Warrior with:
You can see him in your mind’s eye. The khaki uniform and pressed pants, the gold braided cap, the sunglasses, the corncob pipe firmly in his teeth and the ramrod straight back . . . as the years passed, Americans came to see him as a pillar of strength—or a tower of vanity. A man ready to be the savior of his country—or a man the
