Attention megalomaniacs! What theory popularized in the 1840s by Thomas Carlyle states that history can be explained by the impact of just a few?
"Great man theory The great man theory is a 19th-century idea according to which history can be largely explained by the impact of great men, or heroes; highly influential individuals who, due to either their personal charisma, intelligence, wisdom, or political skill used their power in a way that had a decisive historical impact. The theory was popularized in the 1840s by Scottish writer Thomas Carlyle, but in 1860 Herbert Spencer formulated a counter-argument that has remained influential throughout the 20th century to the present: Spencer said that such great men are the products of their societies, and that their"
"particular culture's ""Volksgeist"", and thus of the general ""Zeitgeist"". Thomas Carlyle's 1841 ""On Heroes, Hero Worship and the Heroic in History"" also accorded a key function to heroes and great men in history. Carlyle centered history on the biography of a few central individuals such as Oliver Cromwell or Frederick the Great. His heroes were political and military figures, the founders or topplers of states. His history of great men included geniuses good and, perhaps for the first time in historical study, evil. Explicit defenses of Carlyle's position were rare in the second part of the 20th century. Most in"
"can be traced back to Thomas Carlyle's ""great man"" theory, which stated that ""The History of the World [...] was the Biography of Great Men."" Subsequent commentators interpreted this view to conclude that the forces of extraordinary leadership shape history (Judge, Piccolo, & Kosalka, 2009). Influenced by Carlyle, Francis Galton in ""Hereditary Genius"" (1869) took this idea further. Galton found that leadership was a unique property of extraordinary individuals and suggested that the traits which leaders possessed were immutable and could not be developed. Throughout the early 1900s, the study of leadership focused on traits. Cowley (1931) commented that the"
"actions would be impossible without the social conditions built before their lifetimes. Carlyle stated that ""The history of the world is but the biography of great men"", reflecting his belief that heroes shape history through both their personal attributes and divine inspiration. In his book ""On Heroes, Hero-Worship and the Heroic in History"", Carlyle saw history as having turned on the decisions of ""heroes"", giving detailed analysis of the influence of several such men (including Muhammad, Shakespeare, Martin Luther, Rousseau, Pericles, Napoleon, and Richard Wagner). Carlyle also felt that the study of great men was ""profitable"" to one's own heroic"
"side; that by examining the lives led by such heroes, one could not help but uncover something about one's true nature. American scholar Frederick Adams Woods supported the great man theory in his work ""The Influence of Monarchs: Steps in a New Science of History"". Woods investigated 386 rulers in Western Europe from the 12th century until the French revolution in the late 18th century and their influence on the course of historical events. This theory is usually contrasted with ""history from below"", which emphasizes the life of the masses over the leader. An overwhelming wave of smaller events causes"
"states. His history of great men, of geniuses good and evil, sought to organize change in the advent of greatness. Explicit defenses of Carlyle's position have been rare in the late twentieth century. Most philosophers of history contend that the motive forces in history can best be described only with a wider lens than the one he used for his portraits. A.C. Danto, for example, wrote of the importance of the individual in history, but extended his definition to include ""social individuals,"" defined as ""individuals we may provisionally characterize as containing individual human beings amongst their parts. Examples of social"
"admiration, love and worship, [...] a personal response."" He believed that knowledge was only attainable by those who truly appreciated and respected nature. Self-understanding was an important aspect of Romanticism. It had less to do with proving that man was capable of understanding nature (through his budding intellect) and therefore controlling it, and more to do with the emotional appeal of connecting himself with nature and understanding it through a harmonious co-existence. History writing was very strongly, and many would say harmfully, influenced by Romanticism. In England Thomas Carlyle was a highly influential essayist who turned historian; he both invented"
"19th-century Great Man Theory claims that historical events are the result of the actions of ""heroes"" and other great individuals; Tolstoy argues that this is impossible because of how rarely these actions result in great historical events. Rather, he argues, great historical events are the result of many smaller events driven by the thousands of individuals involved (he compares this to calculus, and the sum of infinitesimals). He then goes on to argue that these smaller events are the result of an inverse relationship between necessity and free-will, necessity being based on reason and therefore explainable by historical analysis, and"
"curious effects of the spoken discourses. ""The Hero as Man of Letters"" (1840): Carlyle was one of the very few philosophers who witnessed the industrial revolution but still kept a non-materialistic view of the world. The book included lectures discussing people ranging from the field of religion through to literature and politics. The figures chosen for each lecture were presented by Carlyle as archetypal examples of individuals who, in their respective fields of endeavor, had dramatically impacted history in some way, for good or ill, and included such figures as Dante (poet), Luther (priest), and Napoleon (king). Muhammad himself found"
"govern wrong, can easily be made responsible for the downfall of states and the birth of new societies. Such elementary conceptions lend themselves willingly to narrative treatment and from Tacitus to Macaulay, from Thuycidides to Green, the traditionally famous historians have been more artist than scientist: they wrote so well because they saw so little. To-day by a natural reaction we tend to a personification of the social forces, great men being merely or nearly instruments in the hands of economic destiny. As so often the truth does not lie in between. Great men make history, but only such history"
"aspirations of people that took the form of ideas, and were often ossified into ideologies (""formulas"" or ""isms"", as he called them). In Carlyle's view, only dynamic individuals could master events and direct these spiritual energies effectively: as soon as ideological 'formulas' replaced heroic human action, society became dehumanised. Charles Dickens used Carlyle's work as a secondary source for the events of the French Revolution in his novel ""A Tale of Two Cities"". Like the opinions of many deep thinkers of the time, these ideas were influential on the development and rise of both Socialism and Fascism. Carlyle moved towards"
"Among the most significant intellectual figures associated with Romanticism was Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881), born in Scotland and later a resident of London. He was largely responsible for bringing the works of German Romantics such as Schiller and Goethe to the attention of a British audience. An essayist and historian, he invented the phrase ""hero-worship"", lavishing largely uncritical praise on strong leaders such as Oliver Cromwell, Frederick the Great and Napoleon. His """" (1837) dramatised the plight of the French aristocracy, but stressed the inevitability of history as a force. With French historian Jules Michelet, he is associated with the use"
"this disease is, according to Carlyle, a ""real aristocracy"" which can lead the working class through the vicissitudes of modern history. Carlyle looked for a new type of “unclassed” aristocracy because he was critical about both an idle landowning aristocracy and a working aristocracy submerged in Mammonism, who instead of being ""captains of industry"", are ""a gang of industrial buccaneers and pirates."" ""Past and Present"" (1843) was written as a response to the economic crisis which began in the early 1840s. This book, like its predecessor ""Chartism"" and ""The Latter-Day Pamphlets"" (1850), presents a further analysis of the condition of"
"his later thinking during the 1840s, leading to a break with many old friends and allies, such as Mill and, to a lesser extent, Emerson. His belief in the importance of heroic leadership found form in the book ""On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and The Heroic in History"", in which he was seen to compare a wide range of different types of heroes, including Odin, Muhammad, Oliver Cromwell, Napoleon, William Shakespeare, Dante, Samuel Johnson, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Robert Burns, John Knox, and Martin Luther. These lectures of Carlyle's are regarded as an early and powerful formulation of the Great Man theory. The book"
"the philosophy of history school contend that the motive forces in history can best be described only with a wider lens than the one that Carlyle used for his portraits. For example, Karl Marx argued that history was determined by the massive social forces at play in ""class struggles"", not by the individuals by whom these forces are played out. After Marx, Herbert Spencer wrote at the end of the 19th century: ""You must admit that the genesis of the great man depends on the long series of complex influences which has produced the race in which he appears, and"
"given artist lives. A ""zeitgeist theory of leadership"" has been contrasted with Thomas Carlyle’s great man theory by Forsyth (2009). In his theory, Carlyle stresses that leaders do not become leaders by fate or accident. Instead, these individuals possess characteristics of great leaders and these characteristics allow them to obtain positions of power. According to Forsyth, Leo Tolstoy disagreed with Carlyle’s perspective, instead believing that leadership, like other things, was a product of the ""zeitgeist"", the social circumstances at the time. Great man theory and zeitgeist theory can be included in two main areas of thought in psychology. For instance,"
"effects of faction, is enjoyed by a large over a small republic"". The Founding Fathers of the United States intended to address this criticism by combining democracy with republicanism. A constitution would limit the powers of what a simple majority can accomplish. Machiavelli put the idea that democracies will tend to cater to the whims of the people, who follow false ideas to entertain themselves, squander their reserves, and do not deal with potential threats to their rule until it is too late. He put forth a cyclical theory of government where monarchies tend to decay into aristocracies, which then"
"of genius have in general received only from posterity! To be more intimately known to posterity than other men are known to their contemporaries! That kind of fame which is commonly the most transient is, in his case, the most durable. The reputation of those writings, which he probably expected to be immortal, is every day fading; while those peculiarities of manner and that careless table-talk the memory of which, he probably thought, would die with him, are likely to be remembered as long as the English language is spoken in any quarter of the globe..."" Thomas Carlyle wrote two"
"Karl Popper, which caused a stir among academics. Thomas Carlyle has espoused the ""heroic view"" of history, famously saying in his essay on the Norse god Odin in his book ""On heroes, hero-worship, & the heroic in history"" that ""No great man lives in vain. The History of the world is but the Biography of great men ... We do not now call our great men Gods, nor admire ""without"" limit; ah no, ""with"" limit enough! But if we have no great men, or do not admire at all,— that were a still worse case."" Carlyle's historical philosophy was based"
"the United States in the early 19th century. In his book ""A Farewell to Alms"", Gregory Clark argues that the human psychological traits (such as literacy, numeracy, and delayed gratification) needed for the divergence spread in England between 1200 and 1800 ""at least culturally and perhaps also genetically"". A shorter online version of Clark's work can be found here: http://faculty.econ.ucdavis.edu/faculty/gclark/papers/Capitalism%20Genes.pdf Economic historian Joel Mokyr has argued that political fragmentation (the presence of a large number of European states) made it possible for heterodox ideas to thrive, as entrepreneurs, innovators, ideologues and heretics could easily flee to a neighboring state in"
"one perceives a 'cause', one also perceives an 'effect'. Hence the doctrine is named occasionalism. Malebranche was well-known and celebrated in his own time, but has since become somewhat of an obscure figure in the history of western philosophy. His philosophy had a profound effect on it, however, through its influence upon Spinoza and Hume, whose problem of causation was influenced by Malebranche’s occasionalism. It’s possible that Malebranche also influenced George Berkeley, although he rejects any association with Malebranche beyond superficial similarities. French philosophy in the 18th century was deeply political. It was heavily imbued with Enlightenment principles and many"
"surrounding the French Revolution inspired much of the historiography and analysis of the early 19th century. Interest in the 1688 Glorious Revolution was also rekindled by the Great Reform Act of 1832 in England. Thomas Carlyle published his magnum opus, the three-volume """" in 1837. The resulting work had a passion new to historical writing. Thomas Macaulay produced his most famous work of history, ""The History of England from the Accession of James the Second"", in 1848. His writings are famous for their ringing prose and for their confident, sometimes dogmatic, emphasis on a progressive model of British history, according"
"done by his younger contemporary Thomas Henry Huxley, who wrote widely on the subject. A number of other non-fiction works of the era made their mark on the literature of the period. The philosophical writings of John Stuart Mill covered logic, economics, liberty and utilitarianism. The large and influential histories of Thomas Carlyle: ""The French Revolution, A History"" and ""On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and The Heroic in History"" permeated political thought at the time. The writings of Thomas Babington Macaulay on English history helped codify the Whig narrative that dominated the historiography for many years. John Ruskin wrote a number of"
"primitive societies (e.g. that they are typically extremely violent or impoverished) are used to justify the values of modern industrial society and to move individuals further away from more natural and equitable conditions. Anarchy was one of the issues at the Putney Debates of 1647: As people began to theorize about the English Civil War, ""anarchy"" came to be more sharply defined, albeit from differing political perspectives: Thomas Carlyle, Scottish essayist of the Victorian era known foremost for his widely influential work of history, ""The French Revolution"", wrote that the French Revolution was a war against both aristocracy ""and"" anarchy:"
"a British audience. An essayist and historian, he invented the phrase ""hero-worship"", lavishing largely uncritical praise on strong leaders such as Oliver Cromwell, Frederick the Great and Napoleon. His """" (1837) dramatised the plight of the French aristocracy, but stressed the inevitability of history as a force. With French historian Jules Michelet, he is associated with the use of the ""historical imagination"". In Romantic historiography this led to a tendency to emphasise sentiment and identification, inviting readers to sympathise with historical personages and even to imagine interactions with them. In contrast to many continental Romantic historians, Carlyle remained largely pessimistic"
"because we are afraid or cry because we feel sad; we are afraid because we tremble and are sad because we cry. One of the long-standing schisms in the philosophy of history concerns the role of individuals in social change. One faction sees individuals (as seen in Dickens' ""A Tale of Two Cities"" and Thomas Carlyle's ""The French Revolution, A History"") as the motive power of history, and the broader society as the page on which they write their acts. The other sees society as moving according to holistic principles or laws, and sees individuals as its more-or-less willing pawns."
"notable theories concerning the negative effects of political dynasties is a political ""Carnegie Effect"", named after Andrew Carnegie. The ""Carnegie Effect"" is based on Carnegie's decision to give all his wealth to non-family members, where he argues that his son might have less incentive of working hard if he were to be assured of his father's wealth. This idea of inherited wealth and connections discouraging future generations to work hard can also be attributed to dynastic politicians. Dynastic politicians have a significant advantage from the start of their political career They have a statistically higher probability, due to factors like"
"orchestrated the defence, such as Charles Dickens, John Ruskin, William Makepeace Thackeray and Charles Kingsley. From then on the policy was to rule the Empire with the maximum degree of coercion. There emerged Scientific racism. Dr Robert Knox wrote The Races of Men in the 1840s, prophesying the clash of races and cultures. Craniologist Samuel George Morton began to measure skulls to determine brain capacities. Charles Darwin's ""Origin of Species"" created biological racism on the basis of natural selection, a theory that became known as Social Darwinism, with protagonists like Thomas Huxley and Herbert Spencer. The idea was that the"
"Theories as a recurring theme in the philosophical digressions. According to Tolstoy, the significance of great individuals is imaginary; as a matter of fact they are only ""history's slaves"" realizing the decree of Providence. William James in his lecture ""Great Men and Their Environment"" underlined the importance of the Great Man's congruence with the surroundings (in the broad sense), though his ultimate point was that environments and individuals shape each other reciprocally, just as environments and individual members of animal species do according to Darwinian theory. Among modern critics of the theory, one, Sidney Hook, is supportive of the idea;"
"helped to shape the social forces that carried them to historical greatness and those who, like Otto von Bismarck and Napoleon, rode on the back of social forces over which they had little or no control. Though Carr was willing to grant individuals a role in history, he argued that those who focus exclusively on individuals in a Great man theory of history were doing a profound disservice to the past. As an example, Carr complained of those historians who explained the Russian Revolution solely as the result of the ""stupidity"" of the Emperor Nicholas II (which Carr regarded as"
"single sentence. Jorge Luis Borges traced the history of this idea from Aristotle's ""On Generation and Corruption"" and Cicero's ""De natura deorum"" (On the Nature of the Gods), through Blaise Pascal and Jonathan Swift, up to modern statements with their iconic simians and typewriters. In the early 20th century, Borel and Arthur Eddington used the theorem to illustrate the timescales implicit in the foundations of statistical mechanics. There is a straightforward proof of this theorem. As an introduction, recall that if two events are statistically independent, then the probability of both happening equals the product of the probabilities of each"
"history, each of some 150-200 years' duration. Each wave begins with prosperity, leading to inflation, inequality, rebellion and war, and resolving in a long period of equilibrium. For example, 18th-century inflation led to the Napoleonic wars and later the Victorian equilibrium. Sir Arthur Keith's theory of a species-wide amity-enmity complex suggests that human conscience evolved as a duality: people are driven to protect members of their in-group, and to hate and fight enemies who belong to an out-group. Thus an endless, useless cycle of ""ad hoc"" ""isms"" arises. One of the recurrence patterns identified by G.W. Trompf involves ""the isolation"
"Tyranny of the majority The tyranny of the majority (or tyranny of the masses) is an inherent weakness of majority rule in which the majority of an electorate can and does place its own interests above, and at the expense of, those in the minority. This results in oppression of minority groups comparable to that of a tyrant or despot, argued John Stuart Mill in his 1859 book ""On Liberty"". American founding father Alexander Hamilton, writing to Thomas Jefferson from the Constitutional Convention, argued the same fears regarding the use of pure direct democracy by the majority to elect a"