Book review: The End of
Greatness: Why American Can’t Have (and Doesn’t Want) Another Great President
Palgrave Macmillan, New York, 2014
280 pages
More substantially, The End of Greatness isn’t a worthwhile
read for me because, right up front, Miller acknowledges his endorsement of the
"Great Man" theory of historical understanding that was championed initially in
the 1840s by the Scottish writer Thomas Carlyle. The theory is often cited but
it has only quite diminished standing today, as most historians and informed
thinkers believe that durable circumstances and the complex dynamics of human
interaction have much more impact than "Great Men" on our lives and on history as it unfolds.
So, Miller gets started on the wrong foot, and his arguments can’t overcome the
narrowness of his analysis.
“Where are the
giants of old, the transformers who changed the world and left great legacies?” Where are the
leaders who “will author some incomparable, unparalleled, and ennobling
achievement at home or on the world stage, an achievement likely to be seen or
remembered as great or transformational?” Miller cites rebellions and
revolutions as “crucibles for emerging leaders.”
He can’t escape
defining “greatness” and offers: “defined generally as incomparable and
unparalleled achievement that is nation- or even world-altering.” A couple
pages later he digs the hole deeper when he equates greatness with military,
political, economic and “soft” power. Incredibly, Miller declares “Greatness in
the presidency may be rare, but it is both real and measurable,” and he
temptingly alludes to “traces of greatness” in several contemporary presidents,
while arguing “Greatness in the presidency is too rare to be relevant in our
modern times.”
Miller makes it official on page 10: Lincoln was one of the great presidents. Lincoln once dismissed another man’s argument by saying “it won’t scour,”
I think Miller’s
thesis won’t scour. He mistakenly asserts that a few great leaders should get
much of the credit for history’s “transformations.” He frames his arguments
with words that can’t be acceptably, explicitly defined on the grand historical
scale that he uses: what is and what isn’t, specifically and unarguably, a
“great legacy”? a “transformation”? an “unparalleled achievement”? a “trace of
greatness”?
Miller relies on
great big categories and a deceptive positive spin to discuss a little idea,
and to make a gratuitous point that really can’t be proved or disproved.(1)
Full disclosure: I didn’t read the whole book. The Introduction stopped me cold.
Full disclosure: I didn’t read the whole book. The Introduction stopped me cold.
(1) Aaron David
Miller, The End of Greatness (New
York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014), 4-14.
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