There are different theories of history. Some historians focus on the so-called Great Men (and Women), whose individual actions of leadership are seen as changing the course of history. Others focus on the people, more interested in how the masses acted than the particular actions of a few individuals.
That divergent way of viewing history has been behind some of the differing ways in which people have been looking at the legacy of the last leader of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev, who died last week at the age of 91.
Was Gorbachev the one man who changed everything about the USSR, Eastern Europe and the political order around the world? Or was he one man, buffeted by the winds of historical change, who moved where it seemed the masses and history would allow him?
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