Lummus engaged in what his citation calls a heroic one-man assault before he was killed by a land mine.

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Both have advantages and disadvantages, much as the broad, impersonal-forces approach to the past and the heroic, great-man theory of history each have theirs.

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But if a black man could be heroic and have all the attributes that you give to the best qualities in men, then how was it possible to treat a black man as subservient or as a non-person?

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"As the last witnesses to the horrors of World War II leave us, it is vital, it is imperative, to keep alive the memory and example of individuals like Raoul Wallenberg, " she said, describing Mr Wallenberg as a man of "moral courage and heroic example".

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President Bill Clinton wrote in his memoirs that he loved Israel's former Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin as he had "rarely loved another man, " and was captivated by Israel's heroic struggle.

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Moreover, he is most clearly the man for the post-Clinton moment, the anti-Gore: clean, heroic, straight-talking, likely to stand up strongly for democracy's interests around the globe.

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Long, low and wide, with a hood that can be measured in furlongs, the M6 has foot-wide rear tires, heroic brakes (love the blue calipers) and a cruel, humorless, inscrutable face, like Iron Man with a kidney stone.

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