# The Hero in History

THE HERO IN HISTORY
​By Sidney Hook:
    The Hero in History
    Reason, Social Myths, and Democracy
    John Dewey: An Intellectual Portrait
    From Hegel to Marx
    Towards the Understanding of Karl Marx
    The Metaphysics of Pragmatism
    American Philosophy To-day and To-morrow (editor with Horace M. Kallen)
THE HERO IN HISTORY
A Study in Limitation and Possibility
by SIDNEY HOOK
Copyright, 1943, by Sidney Hook All rights reserved. This book, or parts thereof, must not be reproduced in any form without permission.
Martin Seeker & Warburg Ltd. 7 John Street, London, W. C. 1
First published in England, 1945
To
Benjie and Susan
no hero-worshippers
CONTENTS
* Leadership in the Modern World.
* The Cultivation of the Hero.
* The Hero as a Child of Crisis.
* The Hero and the Philosopher of History.
* Psychological Roots of Hero-Interest.
* Literature, Music, and Painting.
* Philosophy and Science.
* Religion.
* The Historical Hero.
* The Character of Rulers and Historical Conditions.
* Some Striking Correlations.
* Royalty by Right of Gametes.
* Interpretations of Wood’s Findings.
* The Hegelian World-Spirit.
* The Common Assumptions of Determinism.
* The Spencerian Formula.
* Empirical Elements.
* Engels and the Mysticism of Dialectics.
* Plechanov and Madame Pompadour.
* The Conflict Between Monism and Evidence. ​
* The Heritage of Social Determinism.
* Heroic Action and Historical Alternatives.
* The Hero as Puppet.
* Drouet’s Cart and the Fall of France.
* The Invasion of England.
* The Persian Victory at Marathon.
* Winston Churchill on Lee’s Victory at Gettysburg.
* The Fanciful “If” and Scientific “If.”
* The Hazards of Prophecy.
* The Vanity of Historical Perspectives.
* The Meanings of Contingency.
* The Limits of Contingency.
* The Lost Chances of History.
* Defining the Hero.
* Eventful and Event-Making Personalities.
* Constantine and Jefferson.
* The Uneventful Period.
* Robespierre and Justinian.
* The Hero, the Machine, and the Social Class.
* The Illusion of Eventfulness.
* Some Eventful Women: Cleopatra, Theodora, Catherine II.
* The Influence of the October Revolution.
* Was the October Revolution Historically Inevitable? ​
* Lenin as an Eventful Man or Historical Hero.
* A World Without Lenin.
* Lenin’s Political Portrait.
* Can a Democracy Trust Heroes?
* The Hero as a Demagogue.
* Heroes and Delegated Powers.
* The Democratic Philosophy of the Hero.
* The Critics of Democracy: Mosca, Pareto, and Michels.
* The Scope of Historical Laws.
* Degrees of Social Necessity.
* Responsibility and Freedom.
* The Alternatives Before Us.
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was legally published within the United States (or the United Nations Headquarters in New York subject to Section 7 of the United States Headquarters Agreement) before 1964, and copyright was not renewed.
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Works published in 1943 could have had their copyright renewed in 1970 or 1971, i.e. between January 1st of the 27th year after publication or registration and December 31st of the 28th year. As this work's copyright was not renewed, it entered the public domain on January 1st, 1972.
The longest-living author of this work died in 1989, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 34 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.
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