Two years ago (120823), I referred to Thomas Carlyle’s famous quote (1841) about how all history is about “Great Men.” I juxtaposed two books I had just recently read which highlighted the unseen forces (mosquitos and logistical supply chains) that had a greater impact than the individuals we so often focus on. In the process of writing my upcoming “History of Everything” course, I’ve developed an even stronger sense of the limits of Carlyle’s framing. From this “Big History” perspective, it’s not only famous men that fade into the background, but all humanity.
Indeed, if we say that our “show” has been running for 13.8 billion years, there were no actors until a hundred thousand years ago or so, and no speaking parts until about 50,000 years ago. Even then, due to relatively small populations (~4-5 M 10,000 years ago) and only incremental impacts on the world, humans haven’t been notable causes of change until the “agricultural revolution” of 10,000 to 8,000 years ago. If we manage to off ourselves through any number of potential apocalypses, then we will be a mere blip in the history of life on earth (depending on who is around to write such a history).
Even if we take a less dire scenario, however, there is still much to be gained by considering “decentering” individuals from the story. John Brooke’s “Climate Change and the Course of Global History” (2014) does a fine job of putting the Earth—in its full range of geological and environmental activities—on center stage. Even on current (awful) trends, our present path of overheating the planet and eliminating thousands of species still is relatively minor compared to the various eras of glaciation and extinction that have preceded us. Much of the awfulness of what we’re now doing comes from 1) our moral responsibility as the cause of these deaths, and 2) the fact that, unlike the much more dramatic Late Heavy Bombardment (~4B years ago) , or the separation of Pangaea (~200M years ago), we humans are around to see it and suffer from it. Systemically speaking, it’s more about the rapidity of the change (on a geologic scale) than about the absolute physical changes being wrought.
Historians are finally catching up with this repositioning of the human angle on History. Of course, most history is still written in a Carlylian vein, even if it takes account of Great Women and the ordinary folks of any gender. There has been a long-running historiographical parlor game as to whether History is a “science,” but “Big History” and its climate-driven siblings are inserting ‘real’ science into History. Michel Foucault, the radical French thinker/historian of the late 20C, would have been pleased. He called for and made some efforts to pursue an “archeology” of human societies, urging us to ‘get outside’ our cultural frameworks/prejudices to see how we really roll.
In this way, we Historians are continuing the work of Copernicus, Galileo, Darwin and others who have shown us that our construction of creation stories about the universe, solar system, planet, and plants and animals has been driven by solipsism than a holistic and objective view of how the cosmos is and how life works. The insertion of a human-imitative God into the story—the premise of the Abrahamic faiths and some other belief systems—does little to change this; which is why religious leaders (Christianity in particular) have gone to great lengths to suppress those epistemologically revolutionary interpretations. In other words, there’s not much room for God in Kuiper belts of asteroids, plate tectonics, or DNA mutations. He/She may be making things happen behind the scenes; but there’s no way to tell.
The revival of European humanism in the late medieval period made “Man…the measure of all things.” This new history marches firmly in the other direction. Glaciation cycles and volcanic explosions that darken global skies for years on end (1816, e.g., was known as the “year without a summer” due to fallout from a series of eruptions between 1808 and 1814), don’t really care whether there are people around as witnesses/victims. There is thus likely some irony in the fact that this humanism contributed to the epistemological climate that fostered the “Scientific Revolution” of the 17-19C with all the resulting “objectification” (one might say dehumanizing) of experience that followed in its wake.
Even if we keep human societies in the picture, the impact of individuals (“Great” or otherwise) still fades. The longer and grander framings of human development still leave little room for specific personalities. The number of folks who still matter after a century or two is minute; most survive as exemplars of their eras and as the basis of interesting and illustrative stories that Historians tell. Even broader cultures have relatively short half-lives of impact; although, interestingly, most of the longer-lived ones (e.g., Han China, Egypt) date to well before the modern era. These days, we have too much change going on to allow particular countries/cultures to last too long (e.g., Assyria has a claim to a run of 1400 years, more than five times that of these United States).
So, my “History of Everything” project has quite set my mind spinning in new directions (and is, therefore, a success even before I get into the classroom). I won’t be pushing my class in all the directions touched on here; after all, there’s a lot of “substance” to talk about, too. Still, it’s a provocative step for a “modern” Europeanist to take; particularly at this point in our bewildering, ephemeral culture of the early 21C. This story, even with a lengthy and “objective” (i.e., non-self/culture-centered) perspective will be different fifty years from now. Indeed, it’s hard to imagine that our culture would have produced such a thing fifty years ago. Who knows what the AI/Borg will come up with for the history of a certain species at that time?
Indeed, if we say that our “show” has been running for 13.8 billion years, there were no actors until a hundred thousand years ago or so, and no speaking parts until about 50,000 years ago. Even then, due to relatively small populations (~4-5 M 10,000 years ago) and only incremental impacts on the world, humans haven’t been notable causes of change until the “agricultural revolution” of 10,000 to 8,000 years ago. If we manage to off ourselves through any number of potential apocalypses, then we will be a mere blip in the history of life on earth (depending on who is around to write such a history).
Even if we take a less dire scenario, however, there is still much to be gained by considering “decentering” individuals from the story. John Brooke’s “Climate Change and the Course of Global History” (2014) does a fine job of putting the Earth—in its full range of geological and environmental activities—on center stage. Even on current (awful) trends, our present path of overheating the planet and eliminating thousands of species still is relatively minor compared to the various eras of glaciation and extinction that have preceded us. Much of the awfulness of what we’re now doing comes from 1) our moral responsibility as the cause of these deaths, and 2) the fact that, unlike the much more dramatic Late Heavy Bombardment (~4B years ago) , or the separation of Pangaea (~200M years ago), we humans are around to see it and suffer from it. Systemically speaking, it’s more about the rapidity of the change (on a geologic scale) than about the absolute physical changes being wrought.
Historians are finally catching up with this repositioning of the human angle on History. Of course, most history is still written in a Carlylian vein, even if it takes account of Great Women and the ordinary folks of any gender. There has been a long-running historiographical parlor game as to whether History is a “science,” but “Big History” and its climate-driven siblings are inserting ‘real’ science into History. Michel Foucault, the radical French thinker/historian of the late 20C, would have been pleased. He called for and made some efforts to pursue an “archeology” of human societies, urging us to ‘get outside’ our cultural frameworks/prejudices to see how we really roll.
In this way, we Historians are continuing the work of Copernicus, Galileo, Darwin and others who have shown us that our construction of creation stories about the universe, solar system, planet, and plants and animals has been driven by solipsism than a holistic and objective view of how the cosmos is and how life works. The insertion of a human-imitative God into the story—the premise of the Abrahamic faiths and some other belief systems—does little to change this; which is why religious leaders (Christianity in particular) have gone to great lengths to suppress those epistemologically revolutionary interpretations. In other words, there’s not much room for God in Kuiper belts of asteroids, plate tectonics, or DNA mutations. He/She may be making things happen behind the scenes; but there’s no way to tell.
The revival of European humanism in the late medieval period made “Man…the measure of all things.” This new history marches firmly in the other direction. Glaciation cycles and volcanic explosions that darken global skies for years on end (1816, e.g., was known as the “year without a summer” due to fallout from a series of eruptions between 1808 and 1814), don’t really care whether there are people around as witnesses/victims. There is thus likely some irony in the fact that this humanism contributed to the epistemological climate that fostered the “Scientific Revolution” of the 17-19C with all the resulting “objectification” (one might say dehumanizing) of experience that followed in its wake.
Even if we keep human societies in the picture, the impact of individuals (“Great” or otherwise) still fades. The longer and grander framings of human development still leave little room for specific personalities. The number of folks who still matter after a century or two is minute; most survive as exemplars of their eras and as the basis of interesting and illustrative stories that Historians tell. Even broader cultures have relatively short half-lives of impact; although, interestingly, most of the longer-lived ones (e.g., Han China, Egypt) date to well before the modern era. These days, we have too much change going on to allow particular countries/cultures to last too long (e.g., Assyria has a claim to a run of 1400 years, more than five times that of these United States).
So, my “History of Everything” project has quite set my mind spinning in new directions (and is, therefore, a success even before I get into the classroom). I won’t be pushing my class in all the directions touched on here; after all, there’s a lot of “substance” to talk about, too. Still, it’s a provocative step for a “modern” Europeanist to take; particularly at this point in our bewildering, ephemeral culture of the early 21C. This story, even with a lengthy and “objective” (i.e., non-self/culture-centered) perspective will be different fifty years from now. Indeed, it’s hard to imagine that our culture would have produced such a thing fifty years ago. Who knows what the AI/Borg will come up with for the history of a certain species at that time?
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