There's History in All Men's Lives

It was famously quipped that “when everyone is special, no one really is”. Is therefore biography, the academic discipline that is supposed to establish an individual’s degree of accomplishment and their consequent place in history, still worth the painstaking work invested into the research of a person’s life? Or is it a thing of the past? This book seeks to answer several questions related to this dilemma. Admittedly, the criteria by which the viri illustres – men of merit – once earned their place in a biographical hall of fame have, indeed, become outdated and replaced. What then? If biography is to be advocated as history, does its worth still lie in the establishing of individual merit and value in historical context? Or does it lie in the narrative vehicle itself, the tools it brings, and the techniques it applies? Perhaps its appeal lies in its capacity to “jump-start” entirely new areas of historical research. Isn’t that what makes biography worth trying – even when there's every good reason not to?