Thoughts on History

I've been reading through Defying Hitler by Sebastian Haffner. It's an interesting read thus far, and it's helping me to reconsider history and how I study the past. I actually read this book freshman year of college in my class -- History that Never Happened. Both times, I've been struck by this passage:

Clearly, historical events have varying degrees of intensity. Some may almost fail to impinge on true reality, that is, on the central, most personal part of a person's life. Others can wreak such havoc there that nothing is left standing. The usual way in which history is written fails to reveal this. "1890: Wilhelm II dismiss Bismark." Certainly a key event in German history, but scarcely an event at all in the biography of any German outside its small circle of protagonists. Life went on as before. No family was torn apart, no friendship broke up, no one fled their country. Not even a rendezvous was missed or an opera performance canceled. Those in love, whether happily or not, remained so; the poor remained poor, and the rich rich. Now compare that with "1933: Hindenburg sends for Hitler." An earthquake shatters 66 million lives.

Official, academic history has, as I said, nothing to tell us about the differences in intensity of historical occurrences. To learn about that, you must read biographies, not those of statesmen but the all-too-rare ones of unknown individuals. There you will see that one historical event passes over the private (real) lives of people like a cloud over a lake. Nothing stirs, there is only a fleeting shadow. Another events whips up the lake as in a thunderstorm. For a while it is scarcely recognizable. A third may, perhaps, drain the lake completely. (page 7)

Haffner reminds me again why I study history and which type of history I study. There's something so fascinating, so compelling, so important about the lives of everyday people. It's not just that their stories are overshadowed by the lives of more important people. It's that we, you and I, experience history as individuals. Even the most famous person, Abraham Lincoln for instance, lived in his times as an individual. He had to make decisions, make friends, and live in the midst of all sorts of different and difficult circumstances.

The stories of unknown individuals make up the pulse of history. Their stories are not overshadowed by their greatness. We as historians are not absorbed in understanding why they made a certain decision at age fifty and in tracing everything that led up until that point. Simply because they're unknown, we can focus on their philosophies, their values, their emotions -- in short, their hearts. Their stories reveal which events were actually important, touched people's inmost beings, and caused them to reconsider their deeply-held values.

We do well to remember that the past is only collective in hindsight. While it occurred, it happened in lots of little pieces with lots of individual thoughts behind every move. In many ways, we fight our own personal battles, isolated and cut off from society. What makes each of our stories so remarkable is not the struggles themselves but the details and personalities behind each one.