Who makes history? Is it the individuals? Or is it “the people”? How can we decide this? This is a tricky question, and, depending on the person, it can be answered differently. Before we can ponder this question, we must know what exactly history is.
Definitions of history vary; from multiple dictionary definitions to quotes explaining what history is. Even dictionary definitions of history differ. The Merriam Webster definition is “a: events that form the subject matter of a history b: events of the past c: one that is finished or done for
Some may think that individuals create history. They may think that a single person going about their daily routine even makes history. Individual people make history every day, but there are also bigger historical events that individual people have created. Take, for example, Rosa Parks, or Martin Luther King. Rosa Parks made a huge step in history by not giving her seat on a bus to a white person (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosa_parks). Martin Luther King led many peaceful protests and worked for the end of segregation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_luther_king). Individuals like these have made history in our world, history that has been recorded in many books, history that almost everyone knows about. There are also other people that everyone knows about. Take George Washington for example. He was our first president, and pretty much everyone in the United States knows that. There is a lot of history in our world, recorded and not recorded, that is made by individuals. However, this is not the only history there is; that would make everything pretty boring!
While it is true that individuals create some parts of history, many events are group efforts. Take any war for example. It takes a whole army to win a war, and when the war is over, a whole country is considered to have won. The newspapers all say that “The United States has won the war.” Many large events in history are created by “the people” also. Records of a country’s history are mostly all accomplishments or milestones that the entire country has reached. As said above, Martin Luther King was a single individual that made huge steps in history. However, he was part of an entire movement. The entire civil rights movement was completed by the entire Native American population. It could not have been done by just one person. “The people,” including Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks, all worked together over a series of years to shape the world into what it is today and create lots of interesting stories and events in history. Most events in history, like ones that children study at school are large, country based events, which are therefore made by “the people.” But the question is still there: Is history actually made by the people or by individuals?
Maybe this is not a yes or no question. As seen above, individuals and groups of people all make different aspects of history. Individuals create their own daily history simply by living, which contrasts with wars and large events accomplished by the people. While thinking in this way, another combination can be made. Maybe one event in history was made by both individuals and groups. Using an example from above, Martin Luther King was an important individual in the civil rights movement, but that movement most definitely could not have been completed with the help of every person in each protest or boycott. Each person has a specific role in making history, and sometimes these roles are combined together, working towards the same event. Again, using an already stated example, wars show these qualities. The people may win or lose a war, but each person within the war has their special role in history. Each soldier has a different job, and some things they do may be small and just kept to themselves, while other could be large actions that help the whole army, or affect other soldiers. Another event like this was when the first man was sent to the moon. When great achievements in outer space are reached, they are classified by country, just as it was when America put the first man on the moon. Neil Armstrong, who was the first man on the moon, obviously had an important role in history (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_man_on_the_moon). But all of the other people working on this great feat are melded together into “the people” of America. This is not necessarily a bad thing, it is just the way history is grouped or categorized. On another note, some people may think that history cannot be categorized into individual or group efforts; it simply happens. Any of these views are true, but there are some other questions to ask about these categories.
Some may ask “Can history really be categorized?” History as a whole is a very vast and abstract topic, so the thought of categorizing it may be difficult for some people. Not only can history be categorized by who creates it, but it could be categorized by importance, when it happened, where it happened; the list goes on and on. Every person creates history and is affected by it in their daily life; whether it be something they did yesterday or something done by their ancestors. So is history really a topic that needs to be put into categories?
Sources used:
"Rosa Parks." Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Web. 15 Feb. 2010.
"Martin Luther King, Jr." Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Web. 15 Feb. 2010.
"History - Definition and More from the Free Merriam-Webster Dictionary." Dictionary and Thesaurus - Merriam-Webster Online. Web. 15 Feb. 2010.
"History." Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Web. 15 Feb. 2010.
Photographs:
Photograph. Wikimedia Commons. Wikipedia, 23 Oct. 2006. Web. 15 Feb. 2010.
Photograph. Wikimedia Commons. Wikipedia, 01 July 1969. Web. 15 Feb. 2010.
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