Search People Result | Academic Influence

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 …

See additional learning tools, study tips, features on campus life and much more at our Student Resources Headquarters.

Search Influential People

Person Name

School

Gender

Country

Discipline

Subdiscipline

Ranking

List of the most influential people in Political Science,

#4051

Carl Anton Baumstark

1872 - 1948 (76 years)

Carl Anton Joseph Maria Dominikus Baumstark was a German Orientalist, philologist and liturgist. His main area of study was Oriental liturgical history, its development and its influence on literature, culture and art. His grandfather, Anton Baumstark , was a noted philologist.

#4052

Ludolf Krehl

1825 - 1901 (76 years)

Christoph Ludolf Ehrenfried Krehl was a German orientalist born in Meissen. Biography From 1843 Krehl studied theology and philology at the University of Leipzig, where he attended lectures by Heinrich Leberecht Fleischer on Arabic, Persian and Turkish philology. In 1846 he continued his education at the University of Tübingen as a student of Heinrich Ewald. Later on, he embarked on study trips to Gotha, Paris and Saint Petersburg.

#4053

Jakob Christmann

1554 - 1613 (59 years)

Jakob Christmann was a German Orientalist who also studied problems of astronomy. Life Christmann, a Jew who converted before 1578 to Christianity, studied Orientalistics at the University of Heidelberg's Collegium Sapientiae and became teacher at the Dionysianum. He followed humanist Thomas Erastus to Basel and continued his study tour in Breslau, Vienna and Prague.

#4054

Vasily Mikhaylovich Alekseyev

1881 - 1951 (70 years)

Vasiliy Mikhaylovich Alekseyev was an eminent Soviet sinologist and a member of the Soviet Academy of Sciences. In 1902 he graduated from the Saint Petersburg University and became a professor. He also worked in the British Museum, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Museum für Völkerkunde, Musée Guimet etc.

#4055

Kōjirō Yoshikawa

Kōjirō Yoshikawa

1904 - 1980 (76 years)

was a Japanese sinologist noted for his studies of Chinese history and Classical Chinese literature, especially the Book of Documents and Analects of Confucius. Yoshikawa was awarded many honors for his scholarship, including membership in the Japan Art Academy and he was named a Person of Cultural Merit. In 1969 he was awarded the Prix Stanislas Julien for the entire body of his work.

#4056

August Müller

1848 - 1892 (44 years)

August Müller was a German orientalist. Biography He was educated in classical philology and Semitic studies at the universities of Halle and Leipzig, where he was a student of Heinrich Leberecht Fleischer. In 1874, he became an associate professor, and in 1882 accepted the post of professor of oriental philology at the University of Königsberg. In 1890, he returned as a professor to the University of Halle.

#4057

Friedrich August Rosen

Friedrich August Rosen

1805 - 1837 (32 years)

Friedrich August Rosen was a German Orientalist, brother of Georg Rosen and a close friend of Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy. He studied in Leipzig, and from 1824 in Berlin under Franz Bopp. He was briefly professor of oriental literature at the University of London and became secretary of the Royal Asiatic Society in 1831.

#4058

Friedrich Heinrich Hugo Windischmann

1811 - 1861 (50 years)

Friedrich Heinrich Hugo Windischmann was a German orientalist, exegete and Catholic leader. Biography Son of the philosopher Karl Joseph Hieronymus Windischmann, he studied philosophy, classical philology, and Sanskrit at Bonn, theology at Bonn and Munich, and Armenian with the Mekhitarists in Venice. After receiving a doctorate in theology at Munich on 2 January 1836, he was ordained as a priest on the following 13 March; seven months later he became vicar of the cathedral and secretary of Archbishop Gebsattel of Munich. In 1838 he was professor-extraordinary of canon law and New Testament e...

#4059

August Conrady

1864 - 1925 (61 years)

August Conrady was a German sinologist and linguist. From 1897 he was professor at the University of Leipzig. Conrady first studied classical philology, comparative linguistics and Sanskrit; he continued with Tibetan and Chinese language. He put forward his research findings in 1896 on the relationship between the prefix and tones in the Sino-Tibetan languages, in the work Eine Indo-Chinesische causative-Denominativ-Bildung und ihr Zusammenhang mit den Tonaccenten .

#4060

Clinton Rossiter

1917 - 1970 (53 years)

Clinton Lawrence Rossiter III was an American historian and political scientist at Cornell University who wrote The American Presidency, among 20 other books, and won both the Bancroft Prize and the Woodrow Wilson Foundation Award for his book Seedtime of the Republic.

#4061

Samuel Landauer

1846 - 1937 (91 years)

Samuel Landauer was a German Jewish orientalist and librarian. He received his education at the Yeshiva of Eisenstadt , the gymnasium of Mainz, and the universities of Leipzig, Strasbourg, and Munich . In 1875, he became privatdozent of Semitic languages at the University of Strasbourg, and was appointed librarian there in 1884. In 1894, he received the title of Professor.

#4062

Arnold Wolfers

1892 - 1968 (76 years)

Arnold Oscar Wolfers was a Swiss-American lawyer, economist, historian, and international relations scholar, most known for his work at Yale University and for being a pioneer of classical international relations realism.

#4063

Merle Fainsod

1907 - 1972 (65 years)

Merle Fainsod was an American political scientist best known for his work on public administration and as a scholar of the Soviet Union. His books Smolensk under Soviet Rule, based on documents captured by the German Army during World War II, and How Russia is Ruled helped form the basis of American study of the Soviet Union, and established him "as a leading political scientist of the Soviet Union." Fainsod is also remembered for his work in the Office of Price Administration and as the director of the Harvard University Library.

#4064

Hugh Seton-Watson

1916 - 1984 (68 years)

George Hugh Nicolas Seton-Watson, CBE, FBA was a British historian and political scientist specialising in Russia. Early life Seton-Watson was one of the two sons of Robert William Seton-Watson, the activist and historian. He was educated at Winchester College and New College, Oxford, graduating in 1938 with First Class Honours in 'Modern Greats' .

#4065

Homer H. Dubs

1892 - 1969 (77 years)

Homer Hasenpflug Dubs was an American sinologist and polymath. Though best known for his translation of sections of Ban Gu's Book of Han, he published on a wide range of topics in ancient Chinese history, astronomy and philosophy. Raised in China as the son of missionaries, he returned to the United States and earned a Ph.D. in philosophy . He taught at University of Minnesota and Marshall College before undertaking the Han shu translation project at the behest of the American Council of Learned Societies. Subsequently, Dubs taught at Duke University, Columbia University and Hartford Seminary.

#4066

Karl August Wittfogel

Karl August Wittfogel

1896 - 1988 (92 years)

Karl August Wittfogel was a German-American playwright, historian, and sinologist. He was originally a Marxist and an active member of the Communist Party of Germany, but after the Second World War, he was an equally fierce anticommunist.

#4067

Daniel David Luckenbill

1881 - 1927 (46 years)

Daniel David Luckenbill was an American assyriologist and professor at the University of Chicago. Publications Complete bibliography:John A. Maynard: In Memoriam: A Bibliography of D. D. Luckenbill. In: The American Journal of Semitic Languages and Literatures. 45, 1929, S. 90–93. A Study of the temple documents from the Cassite period. The Chicago University Press, Chicago 1907. Thesis PhD Annals of Sennacherib. The Chicago University Press, Chicago 1924. Reprint 2005. .Ancient Records of Assyria and Babylonia. The Chicago University Press, Chicago 1926/1927. Mehrfache Reprints.Bd. 1 Historical records of Assyria: from the earliest times to Sargon.Bd.

#4068

Harold Foote Gosnell

1896 - 1997 (101 years)

Harold Foote Gosnell was an American political scientist and writer, known for his research and writings on American politics, elections, and political parties. Gosnell attended the University of Rochester, graduating summa cum laude in 1918. He went on to the University of Chicago, where in 1922 he received his doctorate. He became a professor at Chicago and taught there until 1941. During World War II, he went to Washington, D.C., as a budget analyst and later as an operations officer for the United States Department of State, while he continued to study and write on politics. He served in the federal government until 1960, and was on the faculty at American University.

#4069

Philip Marshall Brown

1875 - 1966 (91 years)

Philip Marshall Brown was an American educator and diplomat, born at Hampden, Maine, and educated at Williams College. In 1900–1901, he served as secretary to Lloyd C. Griscom and from 1901 to 1903 was second secretary for the American Legation of Constantinople. He served as Secretary of legation to Guatemala and Honduras, 1903–1907, and as secretary of the American Embassy of Constantinople, 1907–1908. From the latter year to 1910 he was minister to Honduras. Resigning from the diplomatic service, he was appointed instructor in international law at Harvard University in 1912 and in the foll...

#4070

Julie Novkov

Julie Novkov is an American political scientist, currently a professor of political science and women’s, gender, and sexuality studies at the University at Albany, SUNY. She studies the history of American law, American political development, and subordinated identities, with a focus on how laws are used for social control while also being affected by social reform movements.

#4071

Karl Loewenstein

1891 - 1973 (82 years)

Karl Loewenstein was a German lawyer and political scientist, regarded as one of the prominent figures of Constitutional law in the twentieth century. His research and investigations into the typology of the different constitutions have had some impact on the Western constitutional thought. Loewenstein is credited with establishing the theoretical foundations of militant democracy to battle anti-democratic mass movements.

#4072

Herman Finer

1898 - 1969 (71 years)

Herman Finer was a Jewish Romanian-born British political scientist and Fabian socialist. Finer was born in Hertsa, Romania, to Max Finer and Fanny Weiner. He taught for many years at the University of Chicago. He was the eldest brother of Samuel Finer.

#4073

Hedley Bull

1932 - 1985 (53 years)

Hedley Norman Bull was Professor of International Relations at the Australian National University, the London School of Economics and the University of Oxford until his death from cancer in 1985. He was Montague Burton Professor of International Relations at Oxford from 1977 to 1985, and died there.

#4074

C. B. Macpherson

1911 - 1987 (76 years)

Crawford Brough Macpherson was an influential Canadian political scientist who taught political theory at the University of Toronto. Life Macpherson was born on 18 November 1911 in Toronto, Ontario. After graduating from the University of Toronto Schools, he received his undergraduate degree from the University of Toronto in 1933. He then earned a Master of Science degree in economics at the London School of Economics where he studied under the supervision of Harold Laski, he joined the faculty of the University of Toronto in 1935. At that time a Doctor of Philosophy degree in the social sci...

#4075

F. Gregory Gause, III

#4076

Rupert Emerson

1899 - 1979 (80 years)

Rupert Emerson was a professor of political science and international relations. He served on the faculty of Harvard University for forty-three years and served in various U.S government positions. After serving in the U.S. Navy from 1917–1918, he received a B.A. from Harvard University in 1922, then a Ph.D. at the London School of Economics in 1927. He was a member of the American Political Science Association, the Association for Asian Studies , the African Studies Association , the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the Council on Foreign Relations.

#4077

Edward Samuel Corwin

Edward Samuel Corwin

1878 - 1963 (85 years)

Edward Samuel Corwin was an American legal scholar who served as the president of the American Political Science Association. His various political writings in the early to mid-twentieth century microcosmically depict the rising activist thinking in various areas of American, constitutional law.

#4078

Owen Lattimore

1900 - 1989 (89 years)

Owen Lattimore was an American Orientalist and writer. He was an influential scholar of China and Central Asia, especially Mongolia. Although he never earned a college degree, in the 1930s he was editor of Pacific Affairs, a journal published by the Institute of Pacific Relations, and then taught at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, from 1938 to 1963. He was director of the Walter Hines Page School of International Relations there from 1939 to 1953. During World War II, he was an advisor to Chiang Kai-shek and the American government and contributed extensively to the public debate on American policy in Asia.

#4079

Philip Jessup

1897 - 1986 (89 years)

Philip Caryl Jessup , also Philip C. Jessup, was a 20th-century American diplomat, scholar, and jurist notable for his accomplishments in the field of international law. Early life and education Philip Caryl Jessup was born on January 5, 1897, in New York, New York. He was the grandson of Henry Harris Jessup In 1919, he received his undergraduate A.B. degree from Hamilton College. In 1924, he received a law degree from Yale Law School. In 1927, he received a doctorate from Columbia University.

#4080

Daniel Lerner

1917 - 1980 (63 years)

Daniel Lerner was an American scholar and writer known for his studies on modernization theory. Lerner's study of Balgat Turkey played a critical role in shaping American ideas about the use of mass media and US cultural products to promote economic and social development in post-colonial nations. In 1958, he wrote the seminal book The Passing of Traditional Society: Modernizing the Middle East. Scholars have argued that the research project that formed the basis of the book emerged from intelligence requirements in the US government, and was a result of the contract between the Office of Int...

#4081

Allen Schick

Allen Schick is a governance fellow of the Brookings Institution and also a professor of political science at the Maryland School of Public Policy of University of Maryland, College Park. He is known as an authority on budget theory and the federal budget process, in particular. His book, Congress and Money: Budgeting, Spending, and Taxing, won the D.B. Hardeman Prize in 1982.

#4082

Harold Lasswell

Harold Lasswell

1902 - 1978 (76 years)

Harold Dwight Lasswell was an American political scientist and communications theorist. He earned his bachelor's degree in philosophy and economics and was a PhD student at the University of Chicago. He was a professor of law at Yale University. He studied at the Universities of London, Geneva, Paris, and Berlin in the 1920s . He served as president of the American Political Science Association , of the American Society of International Law and of the World Academy of Art and Science .

#4083

Hans Morgenthau

Hans Morgenthau

1904 - 1980 (76 years)

Hans Joachim Morgenthau was a German-American jurist and political scientist who was one of the major 20th-century figures in the study of international relations. Morgenthau's works belong to the tradition of realism in international relations theory; he is usually considered among the most influential realists of the post-World War II period. Morgenthau made landmark contributions to international relations theory and the study of international law. His Politics Among Nations, first published in 1948, went through five editions during his lifetime and was widely adopted as a textbook in U.S.

#4084

Carl Joachim Friedrich

1901 - 1984 (83 years)

Carl Joachim Friedrich was a German-American professor and political theorist. He taught alternately at Harvard and Heidelberg until his retirement in 1971. His writings on state and constitutional theory, constitutionalism and government made him one of the world's leading political scientists in the post-World War II period. He is one of the most influential scholars of totalitarianism.

#4085

Quincy Wright

1890 - 1970 (80 years)

Philip Quincy Wright was an American political scientist based at the University of Chicago known for his pioneering work and expertise in international law, international relations, and security studies.

#4086

Herbert Marcuse

Herbert Marcuse

1898 - 1979 (81 years)

Herbert Marcuse was a German-American philosopher, social critic, and political theorist, associated with the Frankfurt School of critical theory. Born in Berlin, Marcuse studied at the Humboldt University of Berlin and then at Freiburg, where he received his PhD. He was a prominent figure in the Frankfurt-based Institute for Social Research – what later became known as the Frankfurt School. He was married to Sophie Wertheim , Inge Neumann , and Erica Sherover . In his written works, he criticized capitalism, modern technology, Soviet Communism, and popular culture, arguing that they represen...

#4087

Harold Innis

1894 - 1952 (58 years)

Harold Adams Innis was a Canadian professor of political economy at the University of Toronto and the author of seminal works on media, communication theory, and Canadian economic history. He helped develop the staples thesis, which holds that Canada's culture, political history, and economy have been decisively influenced by the exploitation and export of a series of "staples" such as fur, fish, lumber, wheat, mined metals, and coal. The staple thesis dominated economic history in Canada from the 1930s to 1960s, and continues to be a fundamental part of the Canadian political economic trad...

#4088

Edwin Borchard

1884 - 1951 (67 years)

Edwin Montefiore Borchard was an American international legal scholar, jurist, and Sterling Professor at the Yale Law School. He was a leading advocate of innocence reform and compensation for victims of wrongful conviction as well as the use of declaratory judgments. His work in international law emphasized non-intervention and neutrality.

#4089

George Catlin

1896 - 1979 (83 years)

Sir George Edward Gordon Catlin was an English political scientist and philosopher. A strong proponent of Anglo-American co-operation, he worked for many years as a professor at Cornell University and other universities and colleges in the United States and Canada. He preached the use of a natural science model for political science. McMaster University Libraries holds his correspondence archive and the body of some of his works. He had two children, one of whom was the politician and academic Shirley Williams.

#4090

Josef Laurenz Kunz

1890 - 1970 (80 years)

Josef Laurenz Kunz was an Austrian American jurist. He was a Professor of International Law at the University of Toledo from 1934 to 1960, after having emigrated from Austria in 1932. Kunz earned his doctorate degree in 1920 from the University of Vienna, where he was a student of Hans Kelsen.

#4091

Jacqui True

1900 - Present (126 years)

Jacqui True is a political scientist and expert in gender studies. She is a professor of international relations at Monash University, where she is also Director of the Centre for Gender, Peace and Security. She studies international relations, gender mainstreaming, violence against women and its connections to political economy, and the methodology of feminist social science.

#4092

Louis Hartz

1919 - 1986 (67 years)

Louis Hartz was an American political scientist, historian, and a professor at Harvard, where he taught from 1942 until 1974. Hartz’s teaching and various writings —books and articles— have had an important influence on American political theory and comparative history.

#4093

Harold Walter Bailey

1899 - 1996 (97 years)

Sir Harold Walter Bailey, , who published as H. W. Bailey, was an English scholar of Khotanese, Sanskrit, and the comparative study of Iranian languages. Life Bailey was born in Devizes, Wiltshire, and raised from age 10 onwards on a farm in Nangeenan, Western Australia, without formal education. While growing up, he learned German, Italian, Spanish, Latin, and Greek from household books, and Russian from a neighbour. After he grew interested in the lettering on tea-chests from India, he acquired a book of Bible selections translated into languages with non-European scripts, including Tamil, Arabic, and Japanese.

#4094

Gerard Clauson

1891 - 1974 (83 years)

Sir Gerard Leslie Makins Clauson was an English civil servant, businessman, and Orientalist best known for his studies of the Turkic languages. The eldest son of Major Sir John Eugene Clauson, Gerard Clauson attended Eton College, where he was Captain of School, and where, at age 15 or 16, he published a critical edition of a short Pali text, "A New Kammavācā" in the Journal of the Pali Text Society. In 1906, when his father was named Chief Secretary for Cyprus, he taught himself Turkish to complement his school Greek. He studied at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, in classics, receiving his d...

#4095

Carlton J. H. Hayes

1882 - 1964 (82 years)

Carlton Joseph Huntley Hayes was an American historian, educator, diplomat, devout Catholic and academic. A student of European history, he was a leading and pioneering specialist on the study of nationalism. He was elected as president of the American Historical Association over the opposition of liberals and the more explicit Anti-Catholic bias that defined the academic community of his era. He served as United States Ambassador to Spain in World War II. Although he came under attack from the CIO and others on the left that rejected any dealings with Francoist Spain, Hayes succeeded in his...

#4096

Adolf Sturmthal

1903 - 1986 (83 years)

Adolf Fox Sturmthal was a U.S. political scientist, sociologist and journalist of Austrian birth who specialised in labour studies and international relations. Biography Sturmthal earned a PhD in Political Science in 1925 at Vienna University. He was chairman of the Association of Austrian Social Democratic Students and Academics. He moved to Zurich in 1926 to assist Friedrich Adler, the secretary of the Labour and Socialist International, and was editor of International Information. In 1933 and 1934 he organised international aid for German and Austrian socialist refugees from the Austrofascist Dollfuss and Nazi regimes.

#4097

Louise Overacker

1891 - 1982 (91 years)

Louise Overacker was an American political scientist. She specialized in the study of money in politics, United States presidential primaries, and comparative party systems, particularly those of Australia, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom. She was one of the first professors to teach government at Wellesley College, where she was a faculty member from 1925 until 1957, and helped to establish the Wellesley Department of Political Science in 1940.

#4098

Walter Rice Sharp

1896 - 1977 (81 years)

Walter Rice Sharp was an American political scientist. He was born on January 25, 1896. Sharp attended Wabash College. Upon graduation, he served in the United States military as an infantry captain. After the end of World War I, Sharp enrolled at Yale University. Further graduate study at the University of Bordeaux in France was funded by the American Field Service Fellowship awarded in 1920. Sharp received a doctorate in law in 1922, and returned to the United States. He taught at Washington and Lee University from 1923 to 1924, then joined the University of Wisconsin–Madison faculty for fifteen years.

#4099

Paul H. Appleby

1891 - 1963 (72 years)

Paul Henson Appleby was an American journalist, public servant, and educator. He was the editor of Iowa Magazine in Waterloo, Iowa from 1920 to 1924. The four years following saw him as an editorial writer for the Des Moines Register and Tribune. In 1928, he moved to Virginia and published the News-Journal in Radford, Virginia. In 1933, he became Assistant to the Secretary of Agriculture, Henry A. Wallace. By 1940, he was the Undersecretary of Agriculture and in 1944 he became Assistant Director of the Budget for the United States. He left Washington DC to work for the radio station KIRO, ret...

#4100

Bernard B. Fall

Bernard B. Fall

1926 - 1967 (41 years)

Bernard B. Fall was a prominent war correspondent, historian, political scientist, and expert on Indochina during the 1950s and 1960s. Born in Austria, he moved with his family to France as a child after the Anschluss. He started fighting for the French Resistance at the age of 16 and later for the French Army during World War II.

« Previous Next »

Image Attributions