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.
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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.
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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
Zayd ibn Ali
695 - 740 (45 years)
Zayd ibn ʿAlī , also spelled Zaid, was the son of Ali ibn al-Husayn Zayn al-Abidin, and great-grandson of Ali ibn Abi Talib. He led an unsuccessful revolt against the Umayyad Caliphate, in which he died. The event gave rise to the Zaydiyya sect of Shia Islam, which holds him as the next Imam after his father Ali ibn al-Husayn Zayn al-Abidin. Zayd ibn Ali is also seen as a major religious figure by many Sunnis and was supported by the prominent Sunni jurist, Abu Hanifa, who issued a fatwa in support of Zayd against the Umayyads.
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Arthur F. Bentley
1870 - 1957 (87 years)
Arthur Fisher Bentley was an American political scientist and philosopher who worked in the fields of epistemology, logic and linguistics and who contributed to the development of a behavioral methodology of political science.
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Edward Fitzgerald Beale
1822 - 1893 (71 years)
Edward Fitzgerald "Ned" Beale was a national figure in the 19th-century United States. He was a naval officer, military general, explorer, frontiersman, Indian affairs superintendent, California rancher, diplomat, and friend of Kit Carson, Buffalo Bill Cody and Ulysses S. Grant. He fought in the United States-Mexican War, emerging as a hero of the Battle of San Pasqual in 1846. He achieved national fame in 1848 in carrying to the east the first gold samples from California, contributing to the gold rush.
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Charles Eliot
1862 - 1931 (69 years)
Sir Charles Norton Edgcumbe Eliot was a British diplomat, colonial administrator and botanist. He served as Commissioner of British East Africa in 1900–1904. He was British Ambassador to Japan in 1919–1925.
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Alexander Farnese, Duke of Parma
1545 - 1592 (47 years)
Alexander Farnese was an Italian noble and condottiero, and a general of the Spanish army, who was Duke of Parma, Piacenza and Castro from 1586 to 1592, as well as Governor of the Spanish Netherlands from 1578 to 1592. Thanks to a steady influx of troops from Spain, during 1581–1587 Farnese captured more than thirty towns in the south and returned them to the control of Hapsburg Spain. During the French Wars of Religion he relieved Paris for the Catholic League. His talents as a commander on the battlefield, strategist and organizer earned him the regard of his contemporaries and military hi...
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Ignác Goldziher
1850 - 1921 (71 years)
Ignác Goldziher , often credited as Ignaz Goldziher, was a Hungarian scholar of Islam. Along with the German Theodor Nöldeke and the Dutch Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje, he is considered the founder of modern Islamic studies in Europe. Goldziher is also known for his foundational work of esoteric exegesis of the Hebrew Bible in the seminal work on the topic in "Mythology among the Hebrews," in which he defended Jewish mythology from accusations by the racists of the time that the Jews "stole" the myths of other peoples by explaining the similarities as a consequence of an origination in star lo...
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Jan Masaryk
1886 - 1948 (62 years)
Jan Garrigue Masaryk was a Czech diplomat and politician who served as the Foreign Minister of Czechoslovakia from 1940 to 1948. American journalist John Gunther described Masaryk as "a brave, honest, turbulent, and impulsive man".
Go to Profile#3891
Giuseppe Tucci
1894 - 1984 (90 years)
Giuseppe Tucci was an Italian orientalist, Indologist and scholar of East Asian studies, specializing in Tibetan culture and the history of Buddhism. During its zenith, Tucci was a supporter of Italian fascism, and he used idealized portrayals of Asian traditions to support Italian ideological campaigns. Tucci was fluent in several European languages, Sanskrit, Bengali, Pali, Prakrit, Chinese and Tibetan and he taught at the University of Rome La Sapienza until his death. He is considered one of the founders of the field of Buddhist Studies.
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George W. Norris
1861 - 1944 (83 years)
George William Norris was an American politician from the state of Nebraska in the Midwestern United States. He served five terms in the United States House of Representatives as a Republican, from 1903 until 1913, and five terms in the United States Senate, from 1913 until 1943. He served four terms as a Republican and his final term as an independent. Norris was defeated for re-election in 1942.
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Charles Francis Adams Sr.
1807 - 1886 (79 years)
Charles Francis Adams Sr. was an American historical editor, writer, politician, and diplomat. As United States Minister to the United Kingdom during the American Civil War, Adams was crucial to Union efforts to prevent British recognition of the Confederate States of America and maintain European neutrality to the utmost extent. Adams also featured in national and state politics before and after the Civil War.
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Nicolae Titulescu
1882 - 1941 (59 years)
Nicolae Titulescu was a Romanian politician and diplomat, at various times ambassador, finance minister, and foreign minister, and for two terms president of the General Assembly of the League of Nations .
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William J. Burns
1861 - 1932 (71 years)
William John Burns was an American private investigator and law enforcement official. He was known as "America's Sherlock Holmes" and earned fame for having conducted private investigations into a number of notable incidents, such as clearing Leo Frank of the 1913 murder of Mary Phagan, and for investigating the deadly 1910 Los Angeles Times bombing conducted by members of the International Association of Bridge, Structural, Ornamental and Reinforcing Iron Workers. From August 22, 1921, to May 10, 1924, Burns served as the director of the Bureau of Investigation , predecessor to the Federal B...
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Thomas Edward Cliffe Leslie
1826 - 1882 (56 years)
Thomas Edward Cliffe Leslie was an Irish jurist and economist. He was professor of jurisprudence and political economy in Queen's College, Belfast, noted for challenging the Wages-Fund doctrine and for addressing contemporary agrarian policy questions. A critic of Ricardian orthodoxy, he said that it had sidelined consumer behaviour and demand. He developed the idea of consumer sovereignty, but insisted that the analysis of demand should be based on historical and comparative institutional work.
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William Hamilton
1730 - 1803 (73 years)
Sir William Hamilton, KB, PC, FRS, FRSE was a British diplomat, politician, antiquarian and vulcanologist who served as the Envoy Extraordinary to the Kingdom of Naples from 1764 to 1800. After sitting in the House of Commons of Great Britain from 1761 to 1764, he began working as a diplomat, succeeding Sir James Gray as the British ambassador to the Kingdom of Naples. While in Italy, Hamilton became involved in studying local volcanoes and collecting antiquities, becoming a fellow of the Royal Society and being given the Copley Medal. His second wife was Emma Hamilton, who was famed as the m...
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Sabit Damolla
1883 - 1934 (51 years)
Sabit Damolla was a Uyghur independence movement leader who led the Hotan rebellion against the Xinjiang Province government of Jin Shuren and later the Uyghur leader Khoja Niyaz. He is widely known as the first and only prime minister of the short-lived Islamic Republic of East Turkestan from November 12, 1933, until the republic's defeat in May 1934.
Go to Profile#3899
Constantin Argetoianu
1871 - 1955 (84 years)
Constantin Argetoianu was a Romanian politician, one of the best-known personalities of interwar Greater Romania, who served as the Prime Minister between 28 September and 23 November 1939. His memoirs, Memorii. Pentru cei de mâine. Amintiri din vremea celor de ieri —a cross section of Romanian society, were made known for the sharp critique of several major figures in Romanian politics .
Go to Profile#3900
Charles Wilkins
1749 - 1836 (87 years)
Sir Charles Wilkins was an English typographer and Orientalist, and founding member of The Asiatic Society. He is notable as the first translator of Bhagavad Gita into English. He is also the first person to introduce the term Hinduism which would refer to all the different mythologies and cultures of which were existing in India as one. He supervised Panchanan Karmakar to create one of the first Bengali typefaces. In 1788, Wilkins was elected a member of the Royal Society.
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