“Does man make time, or does time make man?”
This is an old philosophical question.
This question may have given rise to the great man theory, a 19th-century idea according to which history can be explained largely by the influence of "great men" or heroes, people who influence the course of history.
In our contemporary history and historiography, the “great man theory of history”, which has now been rejected and largely discredited, was established by Thomas Carlyle, in Carlyle’s book on great men, in which he dealt with the biography of the Messenger Muhammad, may God bless him and grant him peace, along with a hundred personalities. On the other hand, Carlyle read and studied history through the biographies of a hundred men. This means that history is defined and influenced only by the "great" historical figures, such as: prophets, generals, statesmen, inventors, scientists, artists, religious leaders, and philosophers.
As for the opposite reading of Carlyle's book, it can consist of two historical and social schools of thought, which are located very much on the left and center:
It was the earlier school of Marxism, which originally grew out of the preceding Hegelian school, and was one of the most common approaches to historical study, writing, and research in the West since the mid-1960s, and perhaps even earlier.
The Marxist approach to history is based on the idea of class struggle. And uniting working peoples to determine the future outcome of society and civilization through a radical campaign to remove individuality and non-belonging, to ensure access to equality, as there is no heroic leader, but there is an entire society that is the hero.
As for the other school, we will devote an article to it next week.
Mai Khaled
