The imminent ascension to the U.S. presidency of Donald Trump, a man whose supporters and detractors both agree is exceptional in the context of American history, raises a question which historians and social scientists generally prefer to shy away from: To what extent does historical change depend on the actions of a handful of unusual individuals — history’s archetypal Great Men and Women — as opposed to large-scale, long-term, impersonal forces?

Professional academics — historians, political scientists, sociologists, among others — who have tried to offer perspective on Trump’s victory and upcoming presidency have generally emphasized the latter. They tend to identify the key phenomenon of the 2016 election as “populism” — an upsurge of hostility to elites, which they explain by reference to the changing social and cultural conditions that left a large group of white Americans economically vulnerable, fearful of outsiders, and bitterly resentful. They credit Trump with successfully mobilizing this group but devote more analysis to the social phenomenon than to Trump himself.

But the explanatory power of populism may be far stronger for explaining the election than in forecasting what is about to happen next. Though impersonal forces may have given rise to Trump, the president-elect himself resists analysis as a predictable, impersonal force. And so, even as Trump claims a mandate to remake the United States, he may force social scientists and historians to look beyond their usual analytical tools in order to explain his presidency. Tiếp tục đọc “Donald Trump Is Making the Great Man Theory of History Great Again” →