Tolstoy presents his view on how academics view history. He essentially argues that historians have limited reliability. Tolstoy embarks on the path of grappling with the nature of power. 

He urges avoiding the trap of thinking Great Men move people. Instead, it is actually people (like You) who combine when they are willing to move. It is people (like You) who do all the heavy lifting and rarely get any of the credit.

Tolstoy initially describes biographers of famous personages as well as authors of histories related to specific people of a country (say the French or Danish). He views these authors as attributing power to rulers or heroes in a superficial manner. This is the way he sees the way Julius Caesar or Napoleon are analyzed - as super-humans with incredible logistical knowledge who moved the course of humanity.  He feels such works are limited by subjective views. Some works try to deify so-called Great Men but others are overly critical of them. Tolstoy believes accuracy is undermined through authors having an agenda. In present times, let’s take someone writing about the United States: Do they present it our history as a land of opportunity," or are they presenting it more in accord with the N.Y Times 1619 project? 

The question of history, in Tolstoy’s view, is too often determined by what lens the author wishes to see it through. For another example, Tolstoy would probably argue that Doris Kearns Goodwin set out to laud Lincoln when she wrote Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln. She walked down a path of re-introducing the virtue of Lincoln to an audience ready to accept it.

Tolstoy then examines “universalist” or generalist historians, who look beyond one person or country. These are non-specialists who look at the multiplicity of forces at work in leading to movements.  Such authors make the effort to see the overall interplay of people and causes. Tolstoy finds it to be a noble attempt but still problematic.  These academics would tend to say someone like Napoleon was destined to come along because of the excesses of the French Revolution. Or that a man of prudence and great leadership like George Washington was destined to rise from colonial aristocracy. Tolstoy believes such laudatory analysis involves too much bias and guesswork. He infers that historians usually know exactly where they want to wind up when they start a project. Tolstoy finds this generalist brand of historian gets one thing right: historical characters are products of their time and age.  What is neglected, however, is the millions of citizens who in Napoleon’s day, who wished to support him or the various coalitions that united against him. There is a call to war but also an attraction of the people to the movements.   

Then Tolstoy takes on historians of arts and culture, meaning those who place significance on men with ideas that are thought to move people – such as Martin Luther (posting of his 95 Theses), Thomas Paine (writing Common Sense), or Marx & Engels (Communist Manifesto). He finds that even Rousseau’s Social Contract (from 1762) was connected to the moralities and whims of the time.   

Another contemporary example: what led to violence in the streets in 1789 in France or in 2020 in the United States; the stirring of people up through ideas?, or people just ready to take to the streets for reasons they though justified? Tolstoy posits that there is an atmosphere to an age, a collective experience ready for one message or another -- and the people who act are those who move mountains.

Tolstoy assigned to this last class of academics the sins of arrogance and pride for believing just a tiny class of persons with ideas they think original have more influence than they actually have.

To sum it up: War & Peace is about the invasion of 1812 and Tolstoy advances the notion that the effort was much more than Napoleon thinking the military effort was a good idea.