History belongs to...

Watched the second episode of Burns' documentary. Again, he covers stuff that...well, if you don't know something about it you really should not consider yourself anything but a casual historian at best.
I mean, sure...the Alamo and the Battle of San Jacinto are important...the Whitmans had a huge impact...so did the Mormons and the Oregon Trail...no, I can't argue the importance of those things. And I suppose I should remember I am not the target audience...smurf, I could have written 95% of this so far. In fact, I would not need to do much refresher research to do most of it. This is stuff I know.
On the one hand that is reassuring to my monstrous ego. It is cool to know stuff...and know where the source and completion of it are at and what they mean.
On the other hand, it leads to an interesting question and one that I am certainly not the first person to consider. That question concerns what exactly is history....
In The Varieties of History it is argued that economics equals history...that the acts of Kings equal history...that religion is history...that the "nobility" is history...that "the people" are history...and all these things are both true and false. None of them, nor any of the various other things are history in and of themselves.
While the Alamo was a great moment in history insofar as outnumbered men made a courageous stand against overwhelming numbers it is not at all unlikely their brave stand changed only the time of the ultimate inclusion of Texas in the United States. After all, the U.S. was born in blood, grown in war, and to this day has been engaged in warfare of some sort in virtually every decade of its history. I hesitate to say every decade, although I can't think of one where they/we were not. And most of the wars have something in common; the expansion of influence (and typically land). With Manifest Destiny both in the mind and verbiage of the U.S. it is likely Texas as a state was a matter of time, not whether the Alamo happened.
What else happened in 1836? What else happened between Canada and Mexico, the Atlantic and the Pacific in 1836? In other words, what else happened that would affect "the West" that was left out of this documentary?
Well, one pretty important event was the formation of the Whig party. This is a tragedy that had positive roots. They initially were fighting Andrew Jackson. You may remember Old Hickory....has his face on the greenbacks, 2 term President who hand selected his successor, and...oh, yeah, REMOVED THE INDIANS TO WEST OF THE MISSISSIPPI.
What had a larger impact on "the West"...an important but ultimately symbolic battle or the uprooting of the "Five Civilized Tribes", the formation of several states, the alteration forever of how the U.S. government would deal with Native Americans...
For that matter, how important was Samuel Colt inventing the pistol or Henry Campbell inventing the 4-4-0 Steam Locomotive? Ultimately, that might be what "won" the west, to use a common phrase.
It is easy to sit and pick at something that is a huge and important undertaking such as covering "The West" in 12 hours of video...realistically there is only so much you can do.
I think the underlying point is directed not at Ken Burns, who so far has done a marvelous job, but at the nature of scholasticism. People key in on moments in the sun instead of less exciting but more impactful events such as the train or the creation of a party that would last just a few decades.
I guess this is a request for people to understand history is more than flash points and warfare...important events happen many other places.