This narrative still leaves room for the "Great Man" or "luck" theories of history where there are nodes that could significantly alter the next stage of history. While the trends of centralization make sense, does it go a different direction if FDR dies in his first term? If the assassination attempts on Hitler succeed, does the Holocaust happen (and thus the creation of the state of Israel)? The broader themes of growth and centralization and trade continue, but this is being told in a way that implies that there are indeed inflection points that can determine the height and speed of the next wave (even if the wave itself is beyond influence).
Historian Thomas Cahill has a turn of phrase: "The Hinges of History." The basic idea is that there are certain inflection points at which a Great Man can make a quick, easily-detectable difference--but it can only happen at those times. At all other times, the great actions either get lost in the noise or they have effects far enough down the line that it's difficult to tease it apart from all the other factors in play.
Although I have no great love for Cahill, this idea of his seems to me to have merit. Chaotic systems in nature have inflection points, are susceptible to non-predictable perturbations, etc.--once perturbed, new dynamics emerge that incorporate those things, and also change the direction of the system (sometimes resulting in a new equilibrium, other times pushing it towards an attractor state that then precipitates a crisis resulting in a new equilibrium)
Which is a long way of saying...
I don't buy the Great Man theory of history, but I also cannot fully dismiss it. It seems to me that it's an accurate read on a piece of what's going on that mistakes itself for the whole. If Woodrow Wilson hadn't been elected (and he was only elected by a small plurality caused by a terf war within the Republican party resulting in a 3-way race), the Nazis would never have emerged. If Queen Victoria hadn't played favorites between her nephews, the Communist Revolution would never have happened in Russia. If the Spanish hadn't traveled with pigs, the American Natives wouldn't have been wiped out and the Europeans would never have been able to settle the new world en masse. Small(ish) events like these have HUGE consequences that change the system. Sometimes, these small events are natural--sometimes, they're people.
So...yeah. The right (or wrong) person in the right place at the right time can make a massively outsized difference.
Well, if history is at all related to the chaos mathematics, and it feels like it is to me, then there have to be points were small differences can have huge impacts, even if the points outside those nodes are hard to steer off the path. So "right time" is a big element in how much leverage an event has. To pick on a favorite example, in August 1776, wind and fog allowed Washington to escape the British at Brooklyn Heights, and historians pretty much agree if he hadn't, the American Revolution would've failed. But if Washington had lost after the French had come into the war, it wouldn't have had the same influence. Enough was in motion that the overall outcome probably wouldn't've changed. Does that make Washington a Great Man of history, or one who just got lucky at the right time?
This narrative still leaves room for the "Great Man" or "luck" theories of history where there are nodes that could significantly alter the next stage of history. While the trends of centralization make sense, does it go a different direction if FDR dies in his first term? If the assassination attempts on Hitler succeed, does the Holocaust happen (and thus the creation of the state of Israel)? The broader themes of growth and centralization and trade continue, but this is being told in a way that implies that there are indeed inflection points that can determine the height and speed of the next wave (even if the wave itself is beyond influence).
Historian Thomas Cahill has a turn of phrase: "The Hinges of History." The basic idea is that there are certain inflection points at which a Great Man can make a quick, easily-detectable difference--but it can only happen at those times. At all other times, the great actions either get lost in the noise or they have effects far enough down the line that it's difficult to tease it apart from all the other factors in play.
Although I have no great love for Cahill, this idea of his seems to me to have merit. Chaotic systems in nature have inflection points, are susceptible to non-predictable perturbations, etc.--once perturbed, new dynamics emerge that incorporate those things, and also change the direction of the system (sometimes resulting in a new equilibrium, other times pushing it towards an attractor state that then precipitates a crisis resulting in a new equilibrium)
Which is a long way of saying...
I don't buy the Great Man theory of history, but I also cannot fully dismiss it. It seems to me that it's an accurate read on a piece of what's going on that mistakes itself for the whole. If Woodrow Wilson hadn't been elected (and he was only elected by a small plurality caused by a terf war within the Republican party resulting in a 3-way race), the Nazis would never have emerged. If Queen Victoria hadn't played favorites between her nephews, the Communist Revolution would never have happened in Russia. If the Spanish hadn't traveled with pigs, the American Natives wouldn't have been wiped out and the Europeans would never have been able to settle the new world en masse. Small(ish) events like these have HUGE consequences that change the system. Sometimes, these small events are natural--sometimes, they're people.
So...yeah. The right (or wrong) person in the right place at the right time can make a massively outsized difference.
Well, if history is at all related to the chaos mathematics, and it feels like it is to me, then there have to be points were small differences can have huge impacts, even if the points outside those nodes are hard to steer off the path. So "right time" is a big element in how much leverage an event has. To pick on a favorite example, in August 1776, wind and fog allowed Washington to escape the British at Brooklyn Heights, and historians pretty much agree if he hadn't, the American Revolution would've failed. But if Washington had lost after the French had come into the war, it wouldn't have had the same influence. Enough was in motion that the overall outcome probably wouldn't've changed. Does that make Washington a Great Man of history, or one who just got lucky at the right time?
Gah "Beyond influence" should be "cannot be diverted."