SOURCE: Feuer, Lewis S. “Gertrude Himmelfarb: A Historian Considers Heroes and Their Historians.” Philosophy of the Social Sciences 23, no. 1 (March 1993): 5-25.

In the following essay, Feuer examines the central tenets of Himmelfarb's philosophy of history, as put forth in her books and essays.

This essay discusses the views of historian Gertrude Himmelfarb, who sets forth that democratic societies tend toward a determinist outlook; she fears that the weakened belief in free will and its heroes endangers a democratic society. She regards H. G. Wells as the founder in 1920 of the “new history,” with its antiheroic bias. She welcomes therefore the television series The Civil War for having achieved “a history from above and history from below,” with its heroes among common soldiers as well as the generals and statesmen. Himmelfarb criticizes the “debunking” historians who not only belittle the significance of heroes but find in “small causes” (e...