Titans of History

In 1999 he chose a young, ambitious and severe ex-KGB officer and cabinet minister named Vladimir Putin to be his successor and dramatically resigned the presidency. Putin proved more than equal to the task: he restored the power of the state and the prestige of Russia as a great power, crushed mafia corruption and broke the influence of the Oligarchs. At the same time he demonstrated his discipline and vigor by again attacking Chechnya with brutal and bloody competence, crushing the rebellion at the cost of hundreds of thousands of civilian lives. Putin promoted his colleagues from the security services who now dominated Russian government and business, diminished democracy and press freedom, ended the election of local governors and personified a new Russian form of authoritarian government that he called sovereign democracy. During two terms in the Kremlin, Putin utterly dominated Russia in a way Gorbachev and Yeltsin had never done: he was able to hand over the presidency to an aide, Dmitri Medvedev, while remaining the country’s ruler as prime minister. In 2012, he was able to return to the presidency, despite popular protests at widespread corruption and the regime’s authoritarianism. Putin may turn out to be the dominant Russian leader of the early 21st century.

ELVIS

1935–1977

The colored folks been singing it and playing it just like I’m doin’ now, man, for more years than I know … They played it like that in their shanties and in their juke joints and nobody paid it no mind ’til I goosed it up.

Elvis Presley, in an early interview

Elvis, the King. Thus the United States, that most republican of nations, dubbed its favorite musical son, ensuring that his preeminence would remain inviolate. He didn’t invent rock ’n’ roll, he didn’t write many songs, he never toured abroad, and he has since been eclipsed in almost every bald statistic of popular-music success. But all that is irrelevant. His sublimity of voice—startling in its reach from raunch and rebellion to the angelically tender—his devastating good looks, and the pulsating charisma of the performer entranced millions. He was a global star, and, by carrying the black music of blues and gospel to a white audience in a way that was unthinkable before, he enabled the musical synthesis that remains the bedrock of popular music today.

Elvis Aaron Presley had a poor Southern upbringing and was much closer to his lively and impressive mother than his shirking, petty-criminal father. He was a shy teenager, often bullied for being a mother’s boy. When he left school, he started driving trucks, just as his father did. But it was not long before his remarkable voice came to the attention of the record producer Sam Philips. Philips was looking for a white man to sing “Negro” songs, and when he heard Presley’s self-funded singles, recorded in 1953 as a birthday present for his mother, Philips felt he had found his man.

In 1954 Presley recorded “That’s All Right,” a blues song. Radio stations in Tennessee immediately began playing it, and Presley went on a tour of the Southern states. He came up against the ingrained prejudice of many white Americans opposed to seeing blacks and whites mixing together or sharing culture. But even this generations-old legacy of separateness could not compete with the adoration from the young and more color-blind fans that Presley began to attract. By 1956 pressure from white teenagers had forced radio stations nationwide to play Elvis’ singles—hits such as “Heartbreak Hotel” (1956), “Love Me Tender” (1956) and the title song to the film Jailhouse Rock (1957)—and he remained completely frank about his musical influences. In some quarters black critics accused him of stealing their music; in contrast, Little Richard called Elvis “a blessing,” who “opened the door” for black music. What was undeniable was that his momentum was unstoppable.

Elvis signed a management deal with “Colonel” Tom Parker, to whom he turned over all of his business affairs. Parker was a shadowy character, but he was a master merchandiser and turned Elvis into the greatest musical brand the world had ever seen. Under his guidance, Elvis found that he could draw crowds and audiences on a phenomenal scale. He broke records for sales of singles and albums, and he could attract 80 percent of the American television audience for his TV appearances. Young men wanted to be him, young women wanted him, and older generations were scared and shocked. In the city of Liverpool, John Lennon recruited Paul McCartney to the band that had Elvis as its lodestar and that wanted to be “bigger than Elvis.”