Hello historians,
Y'all are heroes, first and foremost. You provide the context for our identities, our histories and hopes. Magical shit, and I hope you view it as such!
As a layperson, I've only been taught this "great person" theory of history, in which Alexander the Great does a bunch of stuff, and then later Napoleon does a bunch of stuff, etc. History has been presented to me as a sequence of the successes of the most impressive (generally Christian, straight, white and male) people. This feels out of sorts with reality. Sure, Steve Jobs accomplished a lot, but does anyone think we don't end up in a similar space without him specifically?
To present a motivating example, I'm a huge Golden State Warriors fan. At the end of the 2014-15 season (2015 NBA Finals), the Warriors were down 2-1 to the Cleveland Cavaliers. Head coach Steve Kerr decided to forego starting a traditional Center in favor of an additional Wing player-- an unprecedented move. It succeeded, and today, the traditionally dominant Center position has been upended by a new prioritization on Wings.
But Kerr did not come up with this idea. Then 27-year-old video coordinator Nick U'Ren did, and passed it up the chain, where it eventually reached Kerr. This idea changed the sport. And yet using the paradigm with which laypeople such as myself use to understand history, U'Ren will be forgotten; it doesn't matter that they initiated the historically significant event in the first place.
How can I gain an understanding of history beyond the Kerrs?
The good news is that lots of modern scholarship has moved away from "big man" history. The bad news is that lots of modern scholarship has moved away from "big man" history.
By this I mean you will have a plethora of stuff to read - what sort of things are you interested in? I'm primarily a medieval/early modern guy, so could recommend some easy-to-read (and cheap to buy) things like The Cheese and the Worms, which is about a medieval Italian miller with an interesting personal theology, captured through Inquisition records, or Montaillou, about a village which was (allegedly) heretical. Moving away from individuals there would be things like The Great Cat Massacre, or The Mediterranean, both of which are great reads.
I highly recommend you a book called "the french historical revolution", written by Peter Burke.
Also, a guy called François Simiand talked once about these "three idols" (political, chronological, individual). You should google it.
However, in my opinion the study of an individual can be made from different points of view, from a biography to a study of historiographical problems (such as the case of Menocchio on Cheese and the worms).