 For Liang, the major flaw of "old historians" () was their failure to foster the national awareness necessary for a strong and modern nation.Liang's call for new history not only pointed to a new orientation for historical writing in China, but also indicated the rise of modern historical consciousness among Chinese intellectuals.He advocated the Great Man theory in his 1899 piece, "Heroes and the Times" (, "Yīngxióng yǔ Shíshì"), and he also wrote biographies of European state-builders such as Otto von Bismarck, Horatio Nelson, Oliver Cromwell, Lajos Kossuth, Giuseppe Mazzini, and Camillo Benso, Count of Cavour; as well as Chinese men including Zheng He, Tan Sitong, and Wang Anshi.