The Most Influential People Across History
Find the most influential people in 24 academic disciplines and numerous subdisciplines
Find famous and important people related to your research. This is an excellent tool for research papers, topic papers, and building a bibliography. Using our influence-based algorithm, our rankings synthesize data from Wikipedia, Wikidata, Semantic Scholar, and CrossRef.
Students and researchers now have a fast and reliable way to find influential thinkers from 24 disciplines and 300 sub-disciplines (and growing). If you want to find history’s most influential philsosophers, or the world’s most influential mathematicians currently, now you can.
We also provide custom rankings of people by discipline as well as interviews with influential academics who are currently active.
To use this tool, select the discipline (and optional subdiscipline) relevant to your research, and specify influential academics by history, world, or US. Even results that are counterintuitive are often enlightening (our algorithm always picks up a signal).
Methodology: How and Why We Rank by Influence …
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List of the most influential people in History,
#3901
Even Lange
#113601
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (79 years)
Even Lange is a Norwegian economic historian. He was born in Oslo as the son of politician Halvard Manthey Lange and teacher Aase Monsen . On the maternal side he was a nephew of Randi and Per Monsen, and on the paternal side he was a nephew of August Lange, Carl Viggo Manthey Lange and a grandson of Christian Lous Lange. He has married twice.
Go to Profile#3902
John Chynoweth Burnham
#122273
Overall Influence
1929 - 2017 (88 years)
John Chynoweth Burnham was an American historian who was a professor of history at Ohio State University from 1963 to 2002. He was an expert on the history of science, medicine, psychology, and psychiatry. He served as president of the American Association for the History of Medicine from 1990 to 1992, and as editor-in-chief of the Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences from 1997 to 2000. He was a fellow of the American Psychological Association and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He also received the Lifetime Achievement Award from Division 26 of the Ameri...
Go to Profile#3903
Thaddeus Radzilowski
#90686
Overall Influence
1938 - 2018 (80 years)
Thaddeus C. Radzilowski or Thaddeus C. Radzialowski or Tadeusz Radziłowski was a Polish-American historian, scholar, author, professor and co-founder of the Piast Institute, a national institute for Polish and Polish-American affairs. Radzilowski's work focused on Poland and other Central and Eastern European nations, including Russia. He wrote extensively on the histories of these regions as well as the migration of peoples from Central and Eastern Europe, with special emphasis on social history and historiography. He lectured widely in Europe and North America and published more than 100 mo...
Go to Profile#3904
Lois Green Carr
#129976
Overall Influence
1922 - 2015 (93 years)
Lois Green Carr was an American historian of Colonial Maryland and the European settlement of the Chesapeake Bay, serving as the principal historian of St. Mary's City, Maryland for over four decades.
Go to Profile#3905
Ellen Widder
#110962
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (70 years)
Ellen Widder is a German historian. Ellen Widder studied history, geography, education and art history at the Universität Münster from 1975 to 1982. There she passed her first state examination in 1982. With Heinz Stoob she received her doctorate at the University of Münster in 1986 with a thesis on the rule of travel Karls IV. south of the Alps. From 1986 to 1989 she was a research assistant at the Collaborative Research Centre 231 "Carriers, Fields, Forms of Pragmatic Writing in the Middle Ages" at the University of Münster. From 1989 to 1995 Widder was scientific assistant at the University of Münster.
Go to Profile#3906
Javier Ocampo López
#53810
Overall Influence
1933 - Present (92 years)
Javier Ocampo López is a Colombian historian, writer, folklorist and professor. He has been important in the fields of Colombian folklore and history of Latin America and Colombia, especially contributing on the department of Boyacá, the homeland of the Muisca and their religion and mythology. He wrote exclusively in Spanish.
Go to Profile#3907
Adam Galos
#78995
Overall Influence
1924 - 2013 (89 years)
Adam Galos was a Polish historian and professor at University of Wrocław. He specialized in the history of Germany. He died, aged 88, in Wrocław. He spent his childhood in Warsaw, where his father worked as officer. In 1946 he graduated at history and started working at University of Wrocław. In 1949 Galos gained PhD. The topic of his thesis was Społeczeństwo niemieckie wobec ustaw antypolskich 1894–1909.
Go to Profile#3908
Karen J. Greenberg
#45045
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (70 years)
Karen Joy Greenberg is an American historian, professor, and author. She is Director of the Center on National Security at Fordham University School of Law. Life and career Greenberg earned a B.A. in history from Cornell University and a Ph.D. in history from Yale University.
Go to Profile#3909
Canter Brown Jr.
#122265
Overall Influence
Canter Brown Jr. is an American historian, professor and author. He was born in Fort Meade, Florida, and earned his degrees at Florida State University. He has taught at Florida A&M University and has worked at Fort Valley State University in Fort Valley, Georgia. He wrote a book about Florida's African American public officials from 1867 until 1924.
Go to Profile#3910
William I. Hitchcock
#109058
Overall Influence
1965 - Present (60 years)
William I. Hitchcock is the William W. Corcoran Professor of History at the University of Virginia. His work focuses on the history of the 20th century. Books France Restored: Cold War Diplomacy and the Quest for Stability in Europe, 1945-1954, Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1998. , From War to Peace: Altered Strategic Landscapes in the Twentieth Century. Co-edited with Paul Kennedy, New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000. , The Struggle for Europe: The Turbulent History of a Divided Continent, 1945-present New York: Doubleday, 2003; London, Profile Books, 2003 , ; Anchor...
Go to Profile#3911
Carool Kersten
#47778
Overall Influence
1964 - Present (61 years)
Carool Kersten is a Dutch scholar of Islam. Trained as an Arabist, Southeast Asianist and scholar of Religions, he currently is Professor of Islamic Studies at the Catholic University Leuven in Belgium and Emeritus Reader in the Study of Islam & the Muslim World at King's College London. In addition, he is also a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Philosophical and Religious Studies of the Science & Research Center in Koper . His research interests focus on the modern and contemporary Muslim world, in particular intellectual and political developments in both regional and global cont...
Go to Profile#3912
Mika Rissanen
#119954
Overall Influence
1978 - Present (47 years)
Mika Rissanen is a Finnish history researcher and author of non-fiction and young adult literature. In 2005, Rissanen's book Antiikin Urheilu won Tieto-Finlandia award for the best non-fiction book in Finland. In 2016 his non-fiction book Down Beer Street: History in a Pint Glass was published in English, in German and in Italian.
Go to Profile#3913
Harry Woolf
#95550
Overall Influence
1923 - 2003 (80 years)
Harry Woolf was an American educator and historian of science who served as provost of The Johns Hopkins University and was later the fifth Director of the Institute for Advanced Study. Born in New York City, Woolf received his B.A. and M.A. degrees in 1948 and 1949 from the University of Chicago in mathematics, physics, and history. His Ph.D. in 1955 was from Cornell University in the history of science. Between 1953 and 1961, Woolf was a faculty member at Boston University, Brandeis University, and the University of Washington. In 1961 he moved to The Johns Hopkins University, where he was the Willis K.
Go to Profile#3914
Miriam Rürup
#98167
Overall Influence
1973 - Present (52 years)
Miriam Rürup is a German historian and director of the Moses Mendelssohn Zentrum in Potsdam . Academic career Miriam Rürup studied history, sociology and cultural anthropology at the universities of Göttingen , Tel Aviv and Berlin . She worked as a research assistant at the "Topography of Terror" Foundation in Berlin, and as a doctoral fellow at the Franz Rosenzweig Minerva Research Center at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem , and the Simon Dubnow Institute in Leipzig .
Go to Profile#3915
John S. Conway
#70681
Overall Influence
1929 - 2017 (88 years)
John Seymour Conway was Professor Emeritus of History at the University of British Columbia, where he taught for almost 40 years. His work focused on the role of the Vatican and German churches during the Holocaust; on 20th-century Christian–Jewish relations; and on the Holocaust in Hungary and Slovakia.
Go to Profile#3916
Mingyuan Hu
#70418
Overall Influence
Mingyuan Hu is a British historian, writer and translator. Hu read Classics, Philosophy, and Art History at the University of Glasgow and received the Herkless Prize in 2008. From the same university she received her PhD in Literary History. She was Visiting Scholar at the Victoria & Albert Museum, Lecturer in Art Histories of Asia at the University of Leeds, and Research Associate at the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin.
Go to Profile#3917
Edward Berkowitz
#80327
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (75 years)
Edward D. Berkowitz is a professor of history at George Washington University. A graduate of Princeton University, Berkowitz received his master's and doctoral degrees in American history from Northwestern University. His area of special expertise is the history of Social Security and related social policies.
Go to Profile#3918
Hans-Josef Klauck
#62949
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (79 years)
Hans-Josef Klauck is a German-born theologian, religious historian, and Franciscan priest. He is Naomi Shenstone Donnelley Professor Emeritus of New Testament and Early Christian Literature at the University of Chicago Divinity School.
Go to Profile#3919
Marianne Bastid-Bruguière
#55477
Overall Influence
1940 - Present (85 years)
Marianne Bastid-Bruguière is a French sinologist. Biography Marianne Bastid-Bruguière was born on 13 November 1940. She is a graduate of the Ecole Nationale des Langues et Civilisations Orientales and Peking University. From 1969, she has worked for the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique. She has also taught at the Institut d'études politiques de Strasbourg, the École des hautes études en sciences sociales, Paris Diderot University, Harvard University, Seikei University, the University of London, and the University of Kyoto. She is a reader for The China Quarterly.
Go to Profile#3920
Christopher Thorne
#106913
Overall Influence
1934 - 1992 (58 years)
Christopher Guy Thorne DLitt MA FBA was a British historian and a Professor of International Relations at the University of Sussex. He specialised in studying the Pacific War. He was a resident fellow at the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study and a fellow of the British Academy. In 1986 he delivered the British Academy's Sarah Tryphena Phillips Lecture in American Literature and History. Thorne achieved some fame for his new approaches to international history, emphasising the importance of transnational research and perspectives.
Go to Profile#3921
William Dawes
#47538
Overall Influence
William Dawes was a 19th century abolitionist who worked at Oberlin College. Life Dawes and John Keep toured England in 1839 and 1840 gathering funds for Oberlin College in Ohio. They both attended the 1840 anti-slavery convention in London.
Go to Profile#3922
Eugenio Biagini
#72157
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (67 years)
Eugenio F. Biagini is an Italian historian, specialising in democracy and liberalism in nineteenth- and twentieth-century Britain, Ireland and Italy, and is currently Professor in Modern British and European History at the University of Cambridge. He is best known for his work in free trade economics and ideology, the Italian risorgimento, Irish national identity, and the religious dimension of popular radicalism in the nineteenth century.
Go to Profile#3923
Gary R. Mormino
#115584
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (78 years)
Gary R. Mormino is an American historian, author, frequent contributor to the Tampa Bay Times, the Frank E. Duckwall Professor of History Emeritus, and past director of the Florida Studies Program at the University of South Florida St. Petersburg. Mormino graduated with a Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and has taught at USF since 1977. In 2003, the Florida Humanities Council named him its first Humanist of the Year.
Go to Profile#3924
Brian Stanley
#58630
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (72 years)
Brian Stanley is a British historian, best known for his works in the history of Christian missions and world Christianity. Biography He was educated at Whitgift School in Croydon, Surrey. He received his BA, MA, and PhD degrees in history from the University of Cambridge and has taught in theological colleges in London, Bristol, and Cambridge.
Go to Profile#3925
Jocelyne Dakhlia
#92738
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (66 years)
Jocelyne Dakhlia is a French historian and anthropologist. A director of studies at the École des hautes études en sciences sociales, her work is concerned principally with the political and cultural history of Islam in the Maghreb countries bordering the Mediterranean Sea.
Go to Profile#3926
Adrian Vickers
#60724
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (67 years)
Adrian Vickers is an Australian author, historian and professor of Southeast Asian Studies at the University of Sydney. He writes a blog on Indonesian subjects. He has studied and documented Gambuh dance traditions, Panji stories, and other Indonesian art and cultural subjects as well as historiography and colonialism. He has a BA and PhD from the University of Sydney, is the Professor of Southeast Asian Studies and Director of the Asian Studies Program. Vickers' most recent book, The Pearl Frontier, co-written with Julia Martínez, won the University of Southern Queensland History Book Award at the 2016 Queensland Literary Awards.
Go to Profile#3927
Peter Clark
#114705
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (81 years)
Peter Alan Clark is a British historian. Since 2000, he was professor of European urban history at the University of Helsinki. He retired in 2011. Clark was educated at Balliol College, Oxford and graduated in 1966. He started his career as a research fellow at Magdalen College, Oxford. He was then lecturer, reader and later professor of economic and social history at the University of Leicester. From 1985 to 1999, he was the first director of the Centre for Urban History of the University of Leicester.
Go to Profile#3928
Jonathan Zimmerman
#66019
Overall Influence
1961 - Present (64 years)
Jonathan Zimmerman is an American historian of education who is a Professor of History of Education at the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education. Career Zimmerman graduated from Columbia College in 1983, where he was the editor-in-chief of Columbia Daily Spectator. He earned an M.A. in history in 1990, and a Ph.D. in history in 1993, both from Johns Hopkins University. He taught for 20 years at New York University, where he was chair of the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences in NYU’s Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development.
Go to Profile#3929
Shlomo Aronson
#74084
Overall Influence
1936 - 2020 (84 years)
Shlomo Aronson was an Israeli historian and professor of political science at Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Biography Shlomo Aronson was born in Tel Aviv. He worked as a newspaper columnist for Haaretz and Maariv, as well as a radio news editor. In 2007-2009 he was a visiting Professor in Israel Studies at The Arizona Center for Judaic Studies. Aronson died in Kfar Saba.
Go to Profile#3930
Paul C. Nagel
#89072
Overall Influence
1925 - 2011 (86 years)
Paul Chester Nagel was an American historian and biographer who was best known for his works for general readers on the Adams and Lee political families, and who also wrote on the history of his home state of Missouri.
Go to Profile#3931
John Hiden
#102740
Overall Influence
1940 - 2012 (72 years)
John William Hiden was a British historian who was emeritus professor of Baltic studies at Bradford University and senior research fellow at Glasgow University. He was a specialist in modern German history and the history of the Baltic republics, and advised the British government at the time when the Baltic states were reaching independence.
Go to Profile#3932
Carol Liston
#89895
Overall Influence
Carol Ann Liston is an Australian historian and academic researcher who specialises in the history of colonial New South Wales from 1788 to 1860. She is associate professor of history at Western Sydney University, in the School of Humanities and Communication Arts.
Go to Profile#3933
Kerri Greenidge
#98341
Overall Influence
Kerri K. Greenidge is an American historian and academic. Her book Black Radical: The Life and Times of William Monroe Trotter, a biography of civil rights activist William Monroe Trotter, won the 2020 Mark Lynton History Prize. Her sisters are the playwright Kirsten Greenidge and the novelist Kaitlyn Greenidge.
Go to Profile#3934
Jennifer Nez Denetdale
#60220
Overall Influence
Jennifer Nez Denetdale is a professor of American studies at the University of New Mexico, where she teaches courses in Native American Studies with an emphasis on race, class, and gender. She is the director of the University of New Mexico's Institute for American Research. She also specializes in Navajo history and culture and the effects of colonization and decolonization as it has impacted the Navajo people. She is the chair of the Navajo Nation Human Rights Commission. Denetdale is also an advocate for students who wish to pursue an education in Indigenous studies, Navajo women, and the L...
Go to Profile#3935
Patricia O'Toole
#79801
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (75 years)
Patricia O'Toole is an American historian who taught at Columbia University. She is a Society of American Historians fellow and was a visitor at the Institute for Advanced Study. Works External links
Go to Profile#3936
James Allan Stewart Evans
#100916
Overall Influence
1931 - Present (94 years)
James Allan Stewart Evans is a Canadian historian and professor emeritus of classical Near Eastern and religious studies. Biography From 1955 to 1960 he was assistant professor of Classics at the University of Western Ontario and Waterloo College, London.From 1960 to 1961 he was Visiting special lecturer in Classics at the University of Toronto.From 1961 to 1962 he was assistant professor of classics at the University of Texas at Austin.From 1962 to 1971 he was professor of history at the McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.From 1972 to 1973 he was professor of classics at the Unive...
Go to Profile#3937
Malcolm Deas
#113597
Overall Influence
1941 - 2023 (82 years)
Malcolm Douglas Deas, OBE was an English historian specialising in the study of Latin America in general and Colombia in particular. Biography Malcolm Deas was born on 24 April 1941 in Charminster, Dorset, the son of Walter Malcolm Deas and Anne Findlay Pigé-Leschellas. His father died in 1946 whilst serving with the Royal Tank Regiment in Germany. He studied modern history at New College, Oxford, and went on to become a Fellow of All Souls College and St Antony's College. He taught at Oxford University for nearly five decades until his retirement in 2008. He was one of the key figures at th...
Go to Profile#3938
John McCracken
#119551
Overall Influence
1938 - 2017 (79 years)
Kenneth John McCracken was a British historian and Africanist. He was known particularly for his works on the history of Malawi and Christianity in sub-Saharan Africa. Biography John McCracken was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, on 1 July 1938. He was educated at Sedbergh School and later studied at St John's College, Cambridge, where he became interested in African history. He undertook a PhD at Cambridge under the supervision of Ronald Robinson, focussing on Church of Scotland missions in colonial Malawi.
Go to Profile#3939
Ruth Lapide
#82826
Overall Influence
1929 - 2022 (93 years)
Ruth Lapide was a German theologian and historian who was foremost among German language scholars to facilitate and improve understanding between Jews and Christians. After studies in Jerusalem, she returned to Germany in 1974 with her husband Pinchas Lapide, where they co-authored many books. Lapide taught at the Lutheran University of Applied Sciences Nuremberg, appeared on television, and was an advisor to the German Bishops' Conference.
Go to Profile#3940
Adebowale Adefuye
#116306
Overall Influence
1947 - 2015 (68 years)
Adebowale Ibidapo Adefuye was a Nigerian historian and diplomat. Academic career Born in Ijebu-Igbo, Adefuye attended the University of Ibadan, first graduating in 1969. He obtained a Ph.D in history from the same institution in 1973. During his academic career, Adefuye was named a Fulbright Scholar and used the funds to do research at Columbia University, the University of North Florida, and the University of Florida. Adefuye taught at the University of Lagos, heading the school's history department from 1985 to 1987.
Go to Profile#3941
Virginia DeMarce
#98288
Overall Influence
1940 - Present (85 years)
Virginia Easley DeMarce is a historian who specializes in early modern European history, as well as a New York Times Best Selling author in the 1632 series collaborative fiction project. She has done genealogical work on the origins of the Melungeon peoples.
Go to Profile#3942
Victoria Cirlot
#71901
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (70 years)
Victoria Cirlot Valenzuela , daughter of poet Juan Eduardo Cirlot, is a Spanish scholar of medieval culture and literature, philologist, translator and editor. She is a tenured professor of medieval literature and comparative literature at the Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona, Celtic religion professor at the University of Barcelona, and professor of symbology at the Universitat Ramon Llull in the same city. She is co-editor of the collection El Árbol del Paraíso of Editorial Siruela . She is also a founding member of the Institut Universitari de Cultura and coordinator of the research team of the Biblioteca Mystica et Philosophica Alois M.
Go to Profile#3943
Krzysztof Kawalec
#93460
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (71 years)
Prof. dr hab. Krzysztof Maria Kawalec is a Polish historian, lecturer and professor at the University of Wrocław. He specializes in the history of Polish political thought of 19th and 20th centuries, Second Polish Republic and right-wing National Democracy political camp.
Go to Profile#3944
Katherine Forsyth
#82792
Overall Influence
1967 - Present (58 years)
Katherine S. Forsyth is a Scottish historian who specializes in the history and culture of Celtic-speaking peoples during the 1st millennium AD, in particular the Picts. She is currently a professor in Celtic and Gaelic at the University of Glasgow in Scotland. She graduated from the University of Cambridge and Harvard University.
Go to Profile#3945
Martin Previšić
#88741
Overall Influence
1984 - Present (41 years)
Martin Previšić is a Croatian historian. Previšić is an assistant professor at the University of Zagreb's Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences. Biography Previšić was born on September 6, 1984, in Zagreb, Croatia. He graduated from II. gimnazija . From 2002 to 2008 he professionally played basketball for various Croatian basketball teams and was a member of Junior Croatian National Basketball Team and U-20 Croatian National Basketball Team which won gold medal at European Championship for Junior Men 2002.
Go to Profile#3946
Einar Niemi
#101308
Overall Influence
1943 - Present (82 years)
Einar Niemi is a Norwegian historian, born in Nord-Varanger, Finnmark. Biography Niemi is known for his study of the history of ethnical minorities, and for his contributions to administration of cultural heritage of Northern Norway. Among his publications is the book Den finske fare from 1981 .
Go to Profile#3947
Walter A. Friedman
#89305
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (63 years)
Walter A. Friedman is an American academic. He received his PhD in American History from Columbia University in 1996. He serves as a Lecturer of Business Administration and the Director of the Business History Initiative at the Harvard Business School. He is the co-editor of the Business History Review with Geoffrey Jones.
Go to Profile#3948
Walter Markov
#52992
Overall Influence
1909 - 1993 (84 years)
Walter Karl Hugo Markov was a German historian. Shortly after he received his doctorate, a promising academic career was interrupted in 1934 when he joined the Communist Party and briefly became a resistance activist. In 1935 he was sentenced to twelve years in prison, but ten years later in April 1945, as the Hitler regime collapsed, he was one of a number of long-term inmates from the Siegburg jail who organised their own "self-release", with the help of two pistols that he had been able to purchase, already loaded, on the prison black market.
Go to Profile#3949
Christopher Lee
#88684
Overall Influence
1941 - 2021 (80 years)
Christopher Lee RD was a British writer, historian and broadcaster, best known for writing the radio documentary series This Sceptred Isle for the BBC read by Anna Massey and directed by Pete Atkin.
Go to Profile#3950
Chuang Chi-fa
#42675
Overall Influence
1936 - Present (89 years)
Chuang Chi-fa is a Taiwanese historian who studies Chinese history, in particular Manchu history. Chuang is one of the few linguistics researchers with a mastery of the Manchu language. His 1982 book "Qing Gaozong shiquan wugong yanjiu" was called a tour de force by Yingcong Dai of William Paterson University. With Ch’en Chieh-hsien he was one of the first historians to research the Manchu language documents in the Qing dynasty archives at the National Palace Museum.
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