Lessons From History Biographies

The modern world was paved by invisible heroes.           One of the historical trends that has fallen out of fashion in recent decades, was the old obsession with what was known as the “Great Man” theory of History. Early historians of ancient and medieval times were pioneers of the notion of researching and understanding past peoples, but they also gravitated to the notion that only daring and charismatic leaders could move the needle of History, and that we are all just doomed to live forever in the shadows of their achievements. Historians of recent decades have focused much more on the lives of ordinary people through the ages, and how much their movements and contributions were essential to actually enacting the ideas of the so-called “Great Men.” Amanda Bellows’ light, highly readable survey of The Explorers: A New History of America in Ten Expeditions , details the stories of ten relatively ordinary Americans who played a massive, l...

  Grand national visions inevitably clash with the human nature to disagree.   I have now spent over two decades of my life studying the field of History, working with various professors and studying people from every different time and place, in an effort to understand humanity’s decisions and how the world ended up as it has (after weeks like this one, I sometimes feel I know TOO much, and I would have been so much better off joi ning the mass of people who have no interest in my topic or understanding it). I worked and studied with many great people, but perhaps one of the single greatest honors of my life was a chance to spend just a year as a student of Professor Alan Taylor, the former UC Davis professor who has now taken his place as one of the country’s most eminent and famous historians. Taylor’s books are now found in bookstores across America, likely due both to his thoroughly researched historical brilliance, but also his ability to take fairly dense topics and...