Questioning the Told History

For years, textbooks have been cramming centuries of historical information into hundreds of pages. However, with so much information dropped by the wayside, history books lead people to learn and believe a different reality. They drop the primary factors of any historical story, the people, and glorify the secondary factors of that story, the leaders. We read about leaders, but, we don’t have many records on the ordinary people. What did they know? How did they live? What contributions did they make? How much different are they from us?

History is told in a political context not in the social context. You can find out how did Alexander the Great, Omer Ibn Al Khatab, George Washington came to lead and their successful decisions and wars and all that belong to the political context. But, you can’t find much information on how their leadership shifted the society and the culture. You can’t find all the information needed to study an example of a historical social change.

Please advice!

Osman Ageeb