The man bent over his guitar,
A shearsman of sorts. The day was green.
They said, "You have a blue guitar,
You do not play things as they are."
The man replied, "Things as they are
Are changed upon the blue guitar ..."

Wallace Stevens

The history of civilizations and cultures, and of the monumental deeds
of heroes, the history of Hegel, Spengler, and Toynbee, we shall call
"Big history"; the history of ordinary people in the everyday, working
world, living their lives, involved in the daily web of obscure
projects and minor skirmishes, the history of the unknown, the
unsung, and the easily forgotten, we shall call "little history."
Our theme is the relationship between the two, and our thesis is
that investigating this problem is decisively relevant for the philo-
sophy of history. Indeed, a study of "little history" may lead
to the clarification of an entire dimension of the philosophy of history
which has generally been overlooked or obscured. A preliminary
indication of this dimension will bring whatever we have to say into
immediate focus.

Men living in the everyday common-sense world are not only aware of
"Big history" but, in their actual existence, take up attitudes and
positions with regard to it. The realm of experience involved here is
composed not of the overt actions and statements of actors in the
historical world but of the subjective interpretations men in the world
of daily life give to their own actions and attitudes as they deem them
relevant to the domain of history. Our question is: What is presupposed
and involved in the common-sense individual's interpretation of his
own situation with respect to history? Following the general line of
argument suggested in the writings of Max Weber, we may distinguish,
on the one hand, between those completely valid but only partial
aspects of philosophy of history which deal with the nature of the
historical process and of the methodological problems involved in the
historian's knowledge of that process and, on the other hand, those

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