Malazan Empire: Cause - Viewing Profile - Malazan Empire

I just came across the preorder on Amazon. Claims a release date of Jan 20 2026!

Later than I’d like but this is a promising sign

Now that I am older and have actually lived through some history I am re-examining a notion that I have long held. I have believed that while certain names in history may stand out, these characters of history are not the cause for momentous events but merely the wheel spinning as a result of a greater momentum in history. I am specifically thinking of Trump right now but history is full of many examples...

Was Alexander the Great so great? He wasnt a fool but he didnt single handedly defeat the persian empire and hellenize the world because he was wiser and stronger than mortal humans. His army was better trained, better armed and better led than the persian empires. It was a result of at least two generations of Macedonia and we could probably argue it goes back even much further.

MLK famously fought for and won civil rights but if he had been shot or never even been born, the civil rights movement would still have happened and still have been won. Maybe a year later, maybe even a year sooner. He is a famous figure but he was merely a conductor of a greater movement. He also of course had several contemporaries such as Malcom X and many more who all played their part. The millions of Americans who followed him, supported him and propelled him do not get Wikipedia pages but the movement was clearly more than one man.

Nelson Mandela was South Africas first black president after apartheid fell but he was just the ANCs lead candidate but not the only won.

If Winston Churchill had been assassinated during WW2 the war would have gone on and I find it hard to believe that Winston Churchill single handedly won the war for the allies. He was important in the way that any leader of the UK would have been important in his place. Similiarly if Hitler was killed, another Nazi would have taken over. However if Hitler was killed during WW1, the treaty that ended that war would still have planted the seeds for german discontent. Was the seed of WW2 already planted and Hitler just the most successful gardner or is he pivotal. Without him specifically would WW2 been a lesser event, without his obsession with Jews would the holocaust have been absent from events? Alternativly the rise of fashism seems to require an other to vilify so perhaps it was inevitable.

With Trump it seems different. The discontent with politics was there. There was room for an outsider to rise. There was room for the standard politics of the day to be upended by populism. The road to where we are has been paved for decades by repulbicans like Mitch McConnel and the federalist society judges. The overturning of Roe vs Wade was a milestone in their design. We are now in the present. Perhaps Trumo could be any populist celebrity. Elon Musk could perhaps be any rich republican donor of which there are many (surviving Koch Brother for an example). The strings pulled would be different, the agendas might be different but I could see a path that took us down only a slightly different reality. However Tarrifs seem to be a momentul change, huge in scope and altering the fabric of the world. It seems uniquelt Trump. He is its singular champion. He is bringing the Republican part along with him and not the other way round.

After the fall of the USSR it seems Russia was fertile soil for a dictatorship and oligarchy to rise. Perhaps it only looks that way with the target already struck and so anything else seems far fetched. Still if not Putin some other dictator seems likely. However Putins attack on Ukraine seems to be his desire. The purported aims of security, protecting russian language speakers etc all seem to ring hollow. It doesnt even seem Putin needed the war to distract the Russian people. He wanted to cement HIS legacy.

I am coming round to the idea that the influence individuals can have on the world is so much more than perhaps I first admitted. I feel like the greater momentum is still the most imprtant factor but maybe some people are able to direct it while others surf it.