 The philosopher Hegel gave a central role to the "hero", personalized by Napoleon, as the incarnation of a particular culture's "Volksgeist", and thus of the general "Zeitgeist".Thomas Carlyle's 1841 work, "On Heroes, Hero Worship and the Heroic in History", also accorded a key function to heroes and great men in history.Carlyle centered history on the biography of a few central individuals such as Oliver Cromwell or Frederick the Great.