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
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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.
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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
Stanisław Żółkiewski
1547 - 1620 (73 years)
Stanisław Żółkiewski was a Polish nobleman of the Lubicz coat of arms, magnate, military commander and a chancellor of the Polish crown of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, who took part in many campaigns of the Commonwealth and on its southern and eastern borders. He occupied a number of high-ranking posts in the administration of the Commonwealth, including castellan of Lwów , voivod of the Kiev Voivodeship and Great Chancellor of the Crown . From 1588 he was also a Field Crown Hetman, and in 1618 was promoted to Grand Hetman of the Crown. During his military career he won major battles a...
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Wilhelm Geiger
1856 - 1943 (87 years)
Wilhelm Ludwig Geiger was a German Orientalist in the fields of Indo-Iranian languages and the history of Iran and Sri Lanka. He was known as a specialist in Pali, Sinhala language and the Dhivehi language of the Maldives. He is especially known for his work on the Sri Lankan chronicles Mahāvaṃsa and Cūlavaṃsa and made critical editions of the Pali text and English translations with the help of assistant translators.
Go to Profile#3886
Charles King
1844 - 1933 (89 years)
Charles King was an American soldier and a distinguished writer. Biography Born in New York capital, Albany, King was the son of Civil War general Rufus King, grandson of Columbia University president Charles King, and great grandson of Rufus King, who was one of the signers of the United States Constitution on September 17, 1787, in Philadelphia. He graduated from West Point in 1866 and served in the Army during the Indian Wars under George Crook. He was wounded in the arm and head during the Battle of Sunset Pass forcing his retirement from the regular army as a captain in 1879. During this time he became acquainted with Buffalo Bill Cody.
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Samuel Lee
1783 - 1852 (69 years)
Samuel Lee was an English Orientalist, born in Shropshire; professor at Cambridge, first of Arabic and then of Hebrew language; was the author of a Hebrew grammar and lexicon, and a translation of the Book of Job.
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Josef Horovitz
1874 - 1931 (57 years)
Josef Horovitz was a Jewish German orientalist. A son of Markus Horovitz , an Orthodox rabbi, Josef Horovitz studied with Eduard Sachau at the University of Berlin and was there since 1902 as a docent. From 1907 to 1915, he worked in India, at the Muhammadan Anglo-Oriental College at Aligarh and taught Arabic at the request of the Indian government curator for Islamic inscriptions. In this role, he prepared the collection Epigraphia Indo-Moslemica . After his return to Germany he was from 1914 until his death professor of Semitic languages at the Oriental Seminar of the University of Frankfu...
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Johann Andreas Eisenmenger
1654 - 1704 (50 years)
Johann Andreas Eisenmenger was a German Orientalist Scholar from the Electorate of the Palatinate, now best known as the author of Entdecktes Judenthum , which was published in two volumes in 1711 and 1714.
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Moncure D. Conway
1832 - 1907 (75 years)
Moncure Daniel Conway was an American abolitionist minister and radical writer. At various times Methodist, Unitarian, and a Freethinker, he descended from patriotic and patrician families of Virginia and Maryland but spent most of the final four decades of his life abroad in England and France, where he wrote biographies of Edmund Randolph, Nathaniel Hawthorne and Thomas Paine and his own autobiography. He led freethinkers in London's South Place Chapel, now Conway Hall.
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Robert MacGregor Dawson
1895 - 1958 (63 years)
Robert MacGregor Dawson was a Canadian political scientist who served as Professor of Political Economy at the University of Toronto. He is best known as coauthor with Norman Ward of the 1947 textbook The Government of Canada.
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Reinhold Rost
1822 - 1896 (74 years)
Reinhold Rost was a German orientalist, who worked for most of his life at St Augustine's Missionary College, Canterbury in England and as head librarian at the India Office Library, London. Life He was the son of Christian Friedrich Rost, a Lutheran minister, and his wife Eleonore Glasewald, born at Eisenberg in Saxen-Altenburg on 2 February 1822. He was educated at the Eisenberg gymnasium school, and, after studying under Johann Gustav Stickel and Johann Gildemeister, graduated Ph.D. at the University of Jena in 1847. In the same year he came to England, to act as a teacher in German at the King's School, Canterbury.
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Hasan Shaheed Suhrawardy
1890 - 1965 (75 years)
Hasan Shahid Suhrawardy , also known as Shahid Suhrawardy was a Bengali diplomat, translator, poet and art critic. Family and education Shahid Suhrawardy's father, Sir Zahid Suhrawardy, was a Justice of the Calcutta High Court and his younger brother Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy was a politician and 5th Prime Minister of Pakistan. Shaista Suhrawardy Ikramullah, his first cousin, was an intellectual and diplomat.
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Seit Devdariani
1879 - 1937 (58 years)
Seit Devdariani was a Georgian philosopher and political activist who was a deputy of the National Council of Georgia and the Constituent Assembly of Georgia . He was executed during Joseph Stalin's Great Purge.
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Wiktor Weintraub
1908 - 1988 (80 years)
Wiktor Weintraub was a Polish historian who specialized in history of Polish literature. Born in a Polish Jewish family, Weintraub fled Poland during World War II. During this period, he worked for the Polish government in exile.
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Frederick Douglass
1817 - 1895 (78 years)
Frederick Douglass was an American social reformer, abolitionist, orator, writer, and statesman. He became the most important leader of the movement for African-American civil rights in the 19th century.
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Carsun Chang
1886 - 1969 (83 years)
Carsun Chang Biography A pioneering theorist of human rights in the Chinese context, Chang established his own small "Third Force" democratic party during the Nationalist era. Chang supported German-style social democracy while opposing capitalism, communism, and guild socialism. He supported socialization of major industries such as railroads and mines to be run by a combination of government officials, technicians, and consumers. The development of a mixed economy in China, like that advocated by the Social Democratic Party of Germany under Philipp Scheidemann.
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Wolfram Eberhard
1909 - 1989 (80 years)
Wolfram Eberhard was a professor of Sociology at the University of California, Berkeley focused on Western, Central and Eastern Asian societies. Biography Born in Potsdam, German Empire, he had a strong family background of astrophysicists and astronomers.
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Alois Musil
1868 - 1944 (76 years)
Alois Musil was a Czech theologian, orientalist, explorer and bilingual Czech and German writer. Biography Musil was the oldest son born in 1868 into an poor farming family in Moravia . His birthplace of Rychtářov was in an area surrounded by German-speakers, allowing him and his brothers to learn to read and write both German and Czech. He was a second cousin of Robert Musil, an Austrian writer. In the years 1887–1891 he studied Roman Catholic theology at the University of Olomouc, was consecrated as a priest in 1891 and received a doctorate in theology in 1895. In the years 1895–1898 he studied at the Dominican Biblical School in Jerusalem, in 1897-1898 at the Jesuit University of St.
Go to Profile#3900
Enno Littmann
1875 - 1958 (83 years)
Ludwig Richard Enno Littmann was a German orientalist. In 1906 he succeeded Theodor Nöldeke as chair of Oriental languages at the University of Strasbourg. Later on, he served as a professor of Oriental languages at the Universities of Göttingen , Bonn and Tübingen .
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