The Evolution of Specialty Geotechnical Construction Techniques: the “great Leap” Theory

Between 1858 and 1865, the great Scottish historian Thomas Carlyle wrote a 6-volume opus on the life and times of King Frederick the Great of Prussia. This work had followed his 1841 masterpiece “On Heroes, Hero-Worship and the Heroic in History.” In these publications, Carlyle developed what we now call the “Great Man” theory of history. This states that “the history of the world is but a biography of great men.” He evaluated the hero as divinity (in the form of pagan myths), as prophet (Mohammed), as poet (Dante, Shakespeare), as pastor (Martin Luther, John Knox), as man of letters (Samuel Johnson, Robbie Burns), and as king (Oliver Cromwell, Napoleon Bonaparte, paradoxically, kings in all but name). With time, at a different time, Carlyle could have doubtless explored the hero as a warrior (Admiral Lord Nelson, General Stonewall Jackson, General George Patton) or the hero as a musician (as David Bowie wanted to be in his 1977 masterpiece) or as patriot, like that other Bowie of Scottish origins, Jim, who died fighting for the freedom of Texas at the Alamo in 1836.