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).
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List of the most influential people in Political Science,
#3851
Robbin Laird
#181531
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (80 years)
Robbin F. Laird is a military and security analyst. Biography He has taught at Columbia University, Queens College, Princeton University and Johns Hopkins University. He worked with The Center for Defense Analysis and the Institute for Defense Analysis. He is a member of the Board of Contributors of AOL Defense and writes for The Diplomat. He is the director of the ICSA, LLC since 2000 and co-founder of the website Second Line of Defense, since 2010 and of Defense.info since 2018. He is the editor of two defense websites, Second Line of Defense and Defense Information. He became a fellow of T...
Go to Profile#3852
François Joyaux
#191545
Overall Influence
1938 - Present (88 years)
François Joyaux is emeritus professor of East Asian civilization at the Institut national des langues et civilisations orientales where he created the diplôme des hautes études internationales. He has also taught at the université de Paris I, the École nationale d'administration and the Instituts d'études politiques of Paris and Grenoble. He is a member of the Société Asiatique.
Go to Profile#3853
John R. Broxson
#189218
Overall Influence
1932 - 2019 (87 years)
John Ray Broxson was an American politician who served as a member of the Florida Senate from the 1st district from 1966 to 1972. A member of the Democratic Party, he previously served as the 19th sheriff of Santa Rosa County from 1959 to 1961
Go to Profile#3854
Gwendolyn Sasse
#149450
Overall Influence
1972 - Present (54 years)
Gwendolyn Sasse is professor of comparative politics at Nuffield College, University of Oxford. Sasse has research interests in post-communist transitions; comparative democratisation; ethnic conflicts; international conditionality; national minorities; the political behaviour of migrants; diaspora politics; and the political in contemporary art. Since 1 October 2016 Sasse has been the director of the in Berlin.
Go to Profile#3855
Aïssata Lam
#191302
Overall Influence
1986 - Present (40 years)
Aïssata Lam is a Mauritanian Development Professional . She is the cofounder and president of the Youth Chamber of Commerce of Mauritania and has a background in microfinance and agricultural finance. She works in climate finance and is very involved in youth and women empowerment on the African continent, specially in Mauritania.
Go to Profile#3856
Luis Javier Garrido
#103957
Overall Influence
1941 - 2012 (71 years)
Luis Javier Garrido Platas was a Mexican political analyst, researcher, writer and academic. Garrido was born in Mexico City in 1941. His father, Luis Garrido Díaz, served as the rector of National Autonomous University of Mexico from 1948 to 1952 and again from 1952 to 1953. A political analyst and professor, Garrido taught at the National Autonomous University of Mexico. One of his best known books, "El Partido de la revolución Institucionalizada," was first published in 1982.
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Dan O'Meara
#119916
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (78 years)
Dan O'Meara is an intellectual and university professor of South African origin, now working in Quebec. Formerly a member of the African National Congress , O'Meara is a committed activist renowned for his position in the fight against apartheid. His earlier work analyzed ideology among Afrikaners in South Africa. His more recent work focuses on Great Britain and the United States, taking a critical approach to studying international relations.
Go to Profile#3858
Cindy Vestergaard
#192051
Overall Influence
#3859
Edwin John Feulner
#192103
Overall Influence
#3860
Lucy T. Allen
#189408
Overall Influence
1941 - Present (85 years)
Lucy Taylor Allen is a former Democratic member of the North Carolina General Assembly. Political career She represented the state's forty-ninth House district, including constituents in Franklin, Halifax and Nash counties, from her first election in 2002 through 2010. Allen is a former teacher from Louisburg, North Carolina, and served as the mayor of Louisburg . From 1972–1980, Allen served as a member of the Franklin County Board of Education. Allen is an Episcopalian.
Go to Profile#3861
Katia Buffetrille
#132887
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (78 years)
Katia Buffetrille is a French ethnologist and tibetologist. She works at the École pratique des hautes études . Her doctoral thesis is entitled Montagnes sacrées, lacs et grottes : lieux de pèlerinage dans le monde tibétain. Traditions écrites. Réalités vivantes . She has done fieldwork in Tibet and Nepal, researching pilgrimage, non-Buddhist beliefs, and sacred geography.
Go to Profile#3862
Hüseyin Bağcı
#102644
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (67 years)
Hüseyin Bağcı is a Turkish academic, author, and the president of the Foreign Policy Institute. He is also a professor at METU, Faculty of Economic and Administrative Sciences, Department of International Relations.
Go to Profile#3863
Damos Dumoli Agusman
#76820
Overall Influence
1963 - Present (63 years)
Damos Dumoli Agusman is an Indonesian diplomat. He currently serves as Ambassador to Austria, Slovenia and International Organizations in Vienna. Early life Agusman was born in Aceh. He graduated from the Faculty of Law of Padjadjaran University in 1987, writing a senior thesis about the law of treaties concluded by international organizations. While in law school, he served as a research assistant to future Supreme Court justice Mieke Komar Kantaatmadja. He later earned his master's degree from the University of Hull in 1991 and doctoral degree from Goethe University Frankfurt in 2014; the l...
Go to Profile#3864
William Ross
#185758
Overall Influence
William Ross was an American lawyer and politician. Life He was the son of Robert Ross, a Scottish tanner who settled at Rossville, a hamlet in Newburgh, New York. William Ross studied law and gained admission to the bar in 1801, and practiced at Newburgh, New York. He married first Mary S. McLean , and then Caroline Middlebrook of Connecticut.
Go to Profile#3865
Pamela Balch
#37046
Overall Influence
Pamela Balch is the 18th president of West Virginia Wesleyan College in Buckhannon, West Virginia. Balch is a 1971 graduate of West Virginia Wesleyan College, and was the unanimous choice as the eighteenth president of the college by the board of trustees.
Go to Profile#3866
Malika Zeghal
#130934
Overall Influence
1965 - Present (61 years)
Malika Zeghal is a Tunisian Professor in Contemporary Islamic Thought and Life at Harvard University, and formerly an associate professor of the anthropology and sociology of religion in the University of Chicago Divinity School.
Go to Profile#3867
Michael Huttner
#188817
Overall Influence
1969 - Present (57 years)
Michael Huttner is an American attorney, author, crisis communications expert and political entrepreneur. Huttner is a partner with Culture of Giving Back to advise donors on progressive causes and he also serves as Chief Executive Officer of Next Titan Capital, a boutique investment bank focused on cannabis and psychedelics. Huttner was formerly the CEO of Powerplant Global Strategies, a public affairs firm focused on investments in the cannabis industry. In January 2010, he convened a small group of drug reform and policy leaders in Colorado, which laid the groundwork for Colorado to become the first state to decriminalize cannabis in the country.
Go to Profile#3868
Karin Stanford
#162488
Overall Influence
1961 - Present (65 years)
#3869
Olga Frolova
#107295
Overall Influence
1931 - 2018 (87 years)
Olga Pavlovna Frolova / Russian: Óльга Пáвловна Фролóва is a Russian orientalist who wrote her major works on the Japanese and Chinese linguistics. She is a professor and a public figure. She received such State Rewards as the Order of the Rising Sun in 2007, The Order of Merit for the Fatherland in 2010, etc. At present she is the head of the Oriental Branch at the Foreign Languages Department of Novosibirsk State University .
Go to Profile#3870
Lorrie Frasure
#192221
Overall Influence
Dr. Lorrie Frasure is a proud first-generation college graduate, born and raised on the Southside of Chicago. She is an Associate Professor of Political Science and African American Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles. She serves as Department Vice Chair for Graduate Studies in Political Science. In 2020-2021, she will also serve as Acting Director of the Ralph J. Bunche Center for African American Studies at UCLA. In 2015, she became the first African American female and the first woman of color to earn tenure and promotion in the Political Science Department at UCLA. Alma Maters: Ph.D.
Go to Profile#3871
Harvey Claflin Mansfield
#192238
Overall Influence
#3872
Edith J. Patterson
#189759
Overall Influence
1945 - Present (81 years)
Edith Jerry Patterson is a Democratic member of the Maryland House of Delegates who represents district 28, which is based in Charles County. She previously served as a county commissioner from 2002 to 2010 and a member of the Board of Education for Charles County from 1983 to 1995.
Go to Profile#3873
Tiziana Dearing
#192254
Overall Influence
#3874
James T. Harris III
#35460
Overall Influence
James T. Harris III is the fourth president of the University of San Diego. Previously, he served as president of Widener University and Defiance College , where he was named one of the top 50 character-building presidents in the United States by the John Templeton Foundation.
Go to Profile#3875
Jessica Tuchman Matthews
#192268
Overall Influence
#3876
Samuel B. Kazman
#192276
Overall Influence
#3877
Richard P. Nielsen
#118063
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (80 years)
Richard P. Nielsen is the Professor of Management and Organization at Boston College's Carroll School of Management and a past President of the Society for Business Ethics. Biography Nielsen was born in 1946 in New York City. He has bachelor's and master's degrees from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and a Ph.D. from Syracuse University.
Go to Profile#3878
Yasutoshi Yukawa
#174711
Overall Influence
1941 - 2014 (73 years)
Yasutoshi Yukawa was a Japanese linguist who contributed to African and Tibetan linguistics. In 2006 his students and colleagues honoured his work with a Festschrift Yasutoshi Yukawa's initial research interest was Theoretical Linguistics, especially syntax and semantics . During the 1960s and 1970s he published several important papers on Lhasa dialect of Tibetan. He began work on African linguistic in 1975. His main contribution is description of Bantu languages, their genetic classification and tone systems.
Go to Profile#3879
Jessica Vaughan
#192372
Overall Influence
#3880
Krzysztof Dębnicki
#172458
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Krzysztof Dębnicki is a Polish scientist and diplomat serving as a Poland ambassador to Malaysia , Pakistan and Mongolia . Education Krzysztof Dębnicki studied at the University of Ghana . He earned his Master's of Arts degree in history from the University of Warsaw. In 1984, he defended his Ph.D. thesis on political transitions in Nepal between 1950 and 1980. In 2008, he gained post-doctoral degree – habilitation – on political system of India.
Go to Profile#3881
Youssef Mahmoud
#63635
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (79 years)
Youssef Mahmoud, a national from Tunisia was appointed by the United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon as his Special Representative for the United Nations Mission in the Central African Republic and Chad , effective 1 June 2010. He replaces Victor da Silva Angelo of Portugal, whose function ended in March 2010.
Go to Profile#3882
André Lévy
#54095
Overall Influence
1925 - 2017 (92 years)
André Lévy was a French sinologist. He was born in 1925 in Tianjin. He translated many Chinese works of fiction into French. Biography Levy was born in Tianjin, China, in 1925, the son of a family of watchmakers and jewellers, and grew up in the French concession in Tianjin. He married Anne-Marie Lévy, the Norwegian writer. Levy studied French and Sinology, Hindi and Sanskrit at the Sorbonne, and published numerous translations from the Chinese, including La pérégrination vers l'Ouest and Fleur en fiole d'or . In 1958, he was in charge of the EFEO in Hanoi for a while, before its closure. I...
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Hiroshi Ota
#68208
Overall Influence
1936 - Present (90 years)
Hiroshi Ota is a Japanese diplomat. Education He studied at University of Tokyo and entered the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1960. Career He served as Japanese Ambassador to Saudi Arabia in 1992-1994 and to Thailand in 1996–1999.
Go to Profile#3884
Johan David Åkerblad
1763 - 1819 (56 years)
Johan David Åkerblad was a Swedish diplomat and orientalist. Career In 1778 he began his studies of classical and oriental languages at the University of Uppsala. In 1782 he defended his graduate thesis before Professor Eric Michael Fant. From 1783, he improved his language skills at the Swedish royal chancery in Constantinople.
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Mikheil Tsereteli
1878 - 1965 (87 years)
Prince Mikheil "Mikhako" G. Tsereteli also known as Michael von Zereteli was a Georgian prince, historian, philologist, sociologist and public benefactor. He was born in 1878, in a village Tskhrukveti . His father was Prince Giorgi Tsereteli. His brother Vasil Tsereteli was a famous Georgian physician, writer and public benefactor.
Go to Profile#3886
Mamai
Mamai was a powerful Mongol military commander of the Golden Horde. Contrary to popular misconception, he was not a khan , but was a kingmaker for several khans, and dominated parts or all of the Golden Horde for a period of almost two decades in the 1360s and 1370s. Although he was unable to stabilize central authority during the war of succession known as the Great Troubles, Mamai remained a remarkable and persistent leader for decades, while others came and went in rapid succession. His defeat in the Battle of Kulikovo marked the beginning of the decline of the Horde, as well as his own ra...
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Algernon Sidney
1623 - 1683 (60 years)
Algernon Sidney or Sydney was an English politician, republican political theorist and colonel. A member of the middle part of the Long Parliament and commissioner of the trial of King Charles I of England, he opposed the king's execution. Sidney was later charged with plotting against Charles II, in part based on his most famous work, Discourses Concerning Government, which was used by the prosecution as a witness at his trial. He was executed for treason. After his death, Sidney was revered as a "Whig patriot—hero and martyr".
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Esther Chapa
1904 - 1970 (66 years)
Esther Chapa Tijerina was a Mexican medical surgeon, educator, writer, feminist, suffragist, trade unionist, and women's and children's rights activist. In her medical practice she specialized in clinical analysis and microbiology, and she taught microbiology at the National Autonomous University of Mexico.
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Annah May Soule
1859 - 1905 (46 years)
Annah May Soule was a professor of American history and political economy at Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts. Early life Annah May Soule was born in Port Huron, Michigan, and raised in Jackson, Michigan, the daughter of Major Harrison Soule and Mary E. Parker Soule. She had an older sister, Mary Eva Soule Clark . Harrison Soule was an officer in the Union Army during the American Civil War when Annah and her sister were small. After the war, he served as treasurer at the University of Michigan.
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Georg August Wallin
1811 - 1852 (41 years)
Georg August Wallin was a Finnish orientalist, explorer and professor remembered for his journeys in the Middle East during the 1840s. The Finnish translators of Wallin's letters state that Wallin has become a kind of "patron saint of Finnish oriental research". Among other things, the Finnish Oriental Society holds its annual meeting on his birthday. Internationally, it has been estimated that Wallin was one of the most capable Europeans to set foot in Arabia. His qualifications have been compared to U. J. Seetzen and J. L. Burckhardt, because he has been characterized as an Arabian scholar ...
Go to Profile#3891
Walter Simon
1893 - 1981 (88 years)
Ernest Julius Walter Simon, was a German sinologist and librarian. He was born in Berlin and lived there, being educated at the University of Berlin, until he fled the Nazis to London in 1934, where he spent all the rest of his life except for brief periods as a visiting professor in various countries, teaching Chinese at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London from 1947 to 1960. He made great contributions to historical Chinese phonology and Sino-Tibetan linguistics. As a sinologist, he had a Chinese name, Ximen Huade .
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Ralph C. Guzmán
1924 - 1985 (61 years)
Ralph C. Guzmán served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State of Latin America in the Carter Administration and was one of the nation's leading Latino educators. He co-founded the Oakes College at the University of California at Santa Cruz and later was appointed Provost at UCSC's Merrill College. Guzmán played an influential role in the early years of the Chicano Movement, and was a key figure in the Mexican-American community nationwide. During his time in the State Department, he was responsible for formulating and implementing much of the nation's policy in Central and South America.
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David Stuart
1753 - 1814 (61 years)
David Stuart was a Virginia physician, politician, and correspondent of George Washington. When Washington became President of the United States, he made Stuart one of three commissioners appointed to design a new United States capital city.
Go to Profile#3894
James Gunn
1753 - 1801 (48 years)
#3895
Albert Hotopp
1886 - 1942 (56 years)
Albert Hotopp was a German political activist and writer. As an active member of the Communist Party of Germany he fell foul of the Nazi Germany authorities during the in 1933. In 1934 he emigrated to the Soviet Union where he disappeared, probably dying in a labour camp, in the second half of 1942.
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Ubayd Allah ibn Ziyad
648 - 686 (38 years)
Ubayd Allah ibn Ziyad was the Umayyad governor of Basra, Kufa and Khurasan during the reigns of caliphs Mu'awiya I and Yazid I , and the leading general of the Umayyad army under caliphs Marwan I and Abd al-Malik .
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V. O. Key Jr.
1908 - 1963 (55 years)
Valdimer Orlando Key Jr. was an American political scientist known for his empirical study of American elections and voting behavior. He taught at Johns Hopkins University and Harvard. Early life and education V. O. Key was born in Austin, Texas.
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Johann David Michaelis
1717 - 1791 (74 years)
Johann David Michaelis was a German biblical scholar and teacher. He was member of a family that was committed to solid discipline in Hebrew and the cognate languages, which distinguished the University of Halle in the period of Pietism. He was a member of the Göttingen School of History.
Go to Profile#3899
Friedrich Rückert
1788 - 1866 (78 years)
Johann Michael Friedrich Rückert was a German poet, translator, and professor of Oriental languages. Biography Johann Michael Friedrich Rückert was born 16 May 1788 in Schweinfurt and was the eldest son of a lawyer, Johann Adam Rückert, and his wife, Maria Barbara . He was educated at the local Gymnasium and at the universities of Würzburg and Heidelberg. From 1816 to 1817, he worked on the editorial staff of the Morgenblatt at Stuttgart. Nearly the whole of the year 1818 he spent in Rome, and afterwards he lived for several years at Coburg , where he married Luise Wiethaus-Fischer in 1821.
Go to Profile#3900
Richard Wilhelm
1873 - 1930 (57 years)
Richard Wilhelm was a German sinologist, theologian and missionary. He lived in China for 25 years, became fluent in spoken and written Chinese, and grew to love and admire the Chinese people. He is best remembered for his translations of philosophical works from Chinese into German that in turn have been translated into other major languages of the world, including English. His translation of the I Ching is still regarded as one of the finest, as is his translation of The Secret of the Golden Flower; both were provided with introductions by the Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung, who was a persona...
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