Approaches to history

[Stevicus]

I was just doing some light reading on different approaches to history, specifically the Great Man Theory (Great man theory - Wikipedia) and the History From Below (People's history - Wikipedia).

Regarding the Great Man Theory, there are the following assumptions in play:

Assumptions
This theory rests on two main assumptions, as pointed out by Villanova University:[13]

1. Every great leader is born already possessing certain traits that will enable them to rise and lead on instinct.
2. The need for them has to be great for these traits to then arise, allowing them to lead.

This theory, and history, claims these great leaders as heroes that were able to rise against the odds to defeat rivals while inspiring followers along the way. Theorists say that these leaders were then born with a specific set of traits and attributes that make them ideal candidates for leadership and roles of authority and power. This theory relies then heavily on born rather than made, nature rather than nurture and cultivates the idea that those in power deserve to lead and shouldn't be questioned because they have the unique traits that make them suited for the position.[13]

The History From Below contrasts that:

A people's history is the history as the story of mass movements and of the outsiders. Individuals not included in the past in other type of writing about history are part of history-from-below theory's primary focus, which includes the disenfranchised, the oppressed, the poor, the nonconformists, the subaltern and the otherwise forgotten people. This theory also usually focuses on events occurring in the French Revolution, or when an overwhelming wave of smaller events cause certain developments to occur. This revisionist approach to writing history is in direct opposition to methods which tend to emphasize single great figures in history, referred to as the Great Man theory; it argues that the driving factor of history is the daily life of ordinary people, their social status and profession. These are the factors that "push and pull" on opinions and allow for trends to develop, as opposed to great people introducing ideas or initiating events.

In his book A People's History of the United States, Howard Zinn wrote: "The history of any country, presented as the history of a family, conceals fierce conflicts of interest (sometimes exploding, most often repressed) between conquerors and conquered, masters and slaves, capitalists and workers, dominators and dominated in race and walks, and sex. And in such a world of conflict, a world of victims and executioners, it is the job of thinking people, as Albert Camus suggested, not to be on the side of the executioners."[9]

I started thinking of this while reading another forum where a question was asked regarding the premature deaths of various historical figures. A commonly asked question might be "What if Hitler was never born?" or "What if Hitler was killed before he took power?" Questions like that, suggesting that the person of Adolf Hitler was an indispensable component in shaping the events leading up to WW2. The Great Man Theory might suggest that WW2 would not have happened without Hitler or even that Hitler was born with the skills to become an orator and dictator.

Ian Kershaw wrote in 1998 that "The figure of Hitler, whose personal attributes – distinguished from his political aura and impact – were scarcely noble, elevating or enriching, posed self-evident problems for such a tradition." Some historians like Joachim Fest responded by arguing that Hitler had a "negative greatness". By contrast, Kershaw rejects the Great Men theory and argues that it is more important to study wider political and social factors to explain the history of Nazi Germany. Kershaw argues that Hitler was an unremarkable person, but his importance came from how people viewed him, an example of Max Weber's concept of charismatic leadership.[23]

The article notes Fest's contention that Hitler had a "negative greatness."

I'm not sure which theory I would favor, although I lean more towards the "history from below" position. I think events would have happened anyway, although the "Great People" might have added their own individual flavoring to it. In other words, the history from below creates the "meat" of history, while the great individuals provide the gravy and garnish.

My view is that we'd still have light bulbs if Thomas Edison never existed. We'd still have telephones if Alexander Graham Bell never existed.

Any thoughts?

 

[Augustus]

I'm not sure which theory I would favor, although I lean more towards the "history from below" position. I think events would have happened anyway, although the "Great People" might have added their own individual flavoring to it. In other words, the history from below creates the "meat" of history, while the great individuals provide the gravy and garnish.

With academic theories what you often get is a theory (such as Great Man Theory), followed by a backlash and a counter-theory (History from Below) that adds new insights but overcorrects that which it argues against.

For example, if Napoleon had been killed in battle when he was 20, Europe would likely have run a very different course. I don't think the Napoleonic Wars were destined to happen under any potential leader.

Individuals at critical junctures can make a significant difference, even if they are also reliant on many social forces from below.

Which of the 2 theories (if any) better explains any given event would depend on the event in question.

My view is that we'd still have light bulbs if Thomas Edison never existed.

Especially because the lightbulb was invented decades before Edison's iteration on the concept

 

[Estro Felino]

I think that the Great man Theory is utterly reductive and valid only in specific cases.

I think that history is made by the people.
Not by leaders. It is the people who collectively choose, because a furious crowd wins over just one person, no matter how powerful and great this man is.

History is written by winners. Of wars. Not by the defeated.
And winners can write anything.
For example...in 1922 Mussolini was not made a dictator. In 1922 the Italian army joined the enraged crowd and together marched to the King's Palace, to detrhone him, probably.
Since the troops defending the king were insignificant than the protesters' number, the king had no other choice but to nominate Mussolini Prime Minister. That is how fascism started.

And another lie of history is that Mussolini was a right wing dictator. He was 100% leftist. Socialist to the bone.

 

[Estro Felino]

There is a third theory.
The Banking theory. Which says that Great Bankers, by funding the wealthy and the powerful, were the true responsible of wars, conflicts.

There is a document where Lenin grants Rockefeller the rights of exploitation of the oilfileds in Baku.
Not to mention the cheques signed in Switzerland by certain bankers...the recipient was Lenin.

 

[Secret Chief]

How weird. I started reading a history book yesterday and was forced to learn a new word: historiography. (Conspiracy theories don't get a look-in of course). Appropriateness abounds!

 

[RestlessSoul]

“Kings are the slaves of history.”

- Leo Tolstoy

 

[Kooky]

There is a third theory.
The Banking theory. Which says that Great Bankers, by funding the wealthy and the powerful, were the true responsible of wars, conflicts.

That's just a secularized version of the International Jewish Conspiracy, which is itself merely a de-catholicized version of even older Judaeo-Masonic conspiracy theories.

 

[Kooky]

With academic theories what you often get is a theory (such as Great Man Theory), followed by a backlash and a counter-theory (History from Below) that adds new insights but overcorrects that which it argues against.

For example, if Napoleon had been killed in battle when he was 20, Europe would likely have run a very different course. I don't think the Napoleonic Wars were destined to happen under any potential leader.

Individuals at critical junctures can make a significant difference, even if they are also reliant on many social forces from below.

Which of the 2 theories (if any) better explains any given event would depend on the event in question.

I think one thing worth keeping in mind even if one were to adhere to the Great Man Theory, is that leaders and powerful movers and shakers were never born into a vacuum, but themselves the product of their lived experiences and therefore, the times they lived in.

Maybe Napoleon was important, maybe somebody else could have filled his shoes; maybe the transformation of the French Republic into a military dictatorship and, eventually, back into a monarchy was inevitable, maybe it wasn't; barring the invention of time machines, our understanding of history will, in the end, always suffer from a form of survivorship bias, in that we can only explain why things happened after they already happened, and can't do more than speculate how likely it was that they did.