The word "trailblazer" shapes the central idea by supporting the idea that the men pioneered both in their building of a trail and cross-cultural relationships.
<h3>Why is the word "trailblazer" important?</h3>
In the passage we are analyzing here, the word "trailblazer" is used with more than one meaning, as the author indicates by saying "in many senses of the word" in parentheses.
What the author means by "trailblazers" is that those men were indeed blazing trails in the wilderness, that is, creating a path a making it clear for others to follow. However, that is not all there is to it. A trailblazer is also someone who is a pioneer in fields of knowledge, for example.
In the passage, the author also means that those men were blazing figurative trails, in the sense that they built cross-cultural relationships. With this in mind, we can choose option B as the correct answer.
Learn more about trailblazers here:
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