The Most Influential People Across History
Find the most influential people in 24 academic disciplines and numerous subdisciplines
Find famous and important people related to your research. This is an excellent tool for research papers, topic papers, and building a bibliography. Using our influence-based algorithm, our rankings synthesize data from Wikipedia, Wikidata, Semantic Scholar, and CrossRef.
Students and researchers now have a fast and reliable way to find influential thinkers from 24 disciplines and 300 sub-disciplines (and growing). If you want to find history’s most influential philsosophers, or the world’s most influential mathematicians currently, now you can.
We also provide custom rankings of people by discipline as well as interviews with influential academics who are currently active.
To use this tool, select the discipline (and optional subdiscipline) relevant to your research, and specify influential academics by history, world, or US. Even results that are counterintuitive are often enlightening (our algorithm always picks up a signal).
Methodology: How and Why We Rank by Influence …
See additional learning tools, study tips, features on campus life and much more at our Student Resources Headquarters.
List of the most influential people in Political Science,
#4251
Joseph Dacre Carlyle
1758 - 1804 (46 years)
Rev Joseph Dacre Carlyle FRSE was an English orientalist. He gained church preferment and travelled widely. Carlyle worked with Sarah Hodgson to create a version of the Old Testament printed in Arabic.
Go to Profile#4252
Robert Lubbock Bensly
1831 - 1893 (62 years)
Robert Lubbock Bensly was an English orientalist. Life He was born at Eaton, near Norwich, on 24 August 1831. He was the second son of Robert Bensly and Harriet Reeve. He was educated at first in a Baptist private school in Norwich founded by the father of John Sherren Brewer. His school fellows included the headmaster's grandson Henry William Brewer, later a notable architectural illustrator, the clinician and physiologist Sydney Ringer and the architect Edward Boardman.
Go to Profile#4253
Gustav Bickell
1838 - 1906 (68 years)
Gustav Bickell was a German orientalist. He was born in Kassel, and died in Vienna. His father, Johann Wilhelm Bickell, was professor of canon law at the University of Marburg, and died as minister of justice of Hesse-Kassel . In 1862 Gustav became Privatdozent of Semitic and Indo-Germanic languages at Marburg, but the following year he went in the same capacity to the University of Giessen. The finding of a clear testimony in favour of the Immaculate Conception in the hymns of Ephrem the Syrian, which he was transcribing in London, led him to enter the Catholic Church, 5 Nov., 1865. After h...
Go to Profile#4254
Eberhard Schrader
1836 - 1908 (72 years)
Eberhard Schrader was a German orientalist primarily known for his achievements in Assyriology. Biography He was born at Braunschweig, and educated at Göttingen under Ewald. In 1858 he won a university prize for a treatise on the Ethiopian languages, and in 1863 became professor of theology at the University of Zürich. Subsequently, he occupied chairs at Giessen and Jena , and finally became professor of Oriental languages at the Friedrich Wilhelm University, Berlin in 1878. Though he turned first to biblical research, his chief achievements were in the field of Assyriology, in which he was a pioneer in Germany and acquired an international reputation.
Go to Profile#4255
Ernst Kuhn
1846 - 1920 (74 years)
Ernst Wilhelm Adalbert Kuhn was a German Indologist and Indo-Europeanist. He was the son of philologist Adalbert Kuhn. He studied at the universities of Berlin and Tübingen, receiving his doctorate in 1869 with a dissertation-thesis on Kaccāyana, the grammarian, Kaccâyanappakaraṇae specimen. In 1871 he obtained his habilitation for Sanskrit and comparative grammar at the University of Halle, and during the following year relocated to Leipzig as a lecturer. In 1875, he became a full professor at the University of Heidelberg, and from 1877 to 1917 served as a professor of Aryan philology and c...
Go to Profile#4256
Friedrich Dieterici
1821 - 1903 (82 years)
Friedrich Heinrich Dieterici was a German orientalist and historian. Biography He studied at the universities of Halle and Berlin, traveled extensively in the East, and in 1850 was appointed associate professor of Arabic literature at the University of Berlin.
Go to Profile#4257
Andreas Dudith
1533 - 1589 (56 years)
Andreas Dudith , also András Dudith de Horahovicza , was a Hungarian nobleman of Croatian and Italian origin, bishop, humanist and diplomat in the Kingdom of Hungary. Dudith was born in Buda, capital city of the Kingdom of Hungary to a Hungarian noble family with Croatian origins. His father, Jeromos Dudits, was a Croatian and his mother was an Italian. He studied in Wrocław, Italy, Vienna, Brussels and Paris.
Go to Profile#4258
Esteban Gil Borges
1879 - 1942 (63 years)
Esteban Gil Borges , was a Venezuelan politician, diplomat, writer and university professor. Biography Esteban Gil Borges was born in 1879 in Caracas, Venezuela. He worked as a lawyer, diplomat, and politician. He was the 147th Minister of Foreign Affairs of Venezuela from 2 January 1919 until 7 July 1921.
Go to Profile#4259
Henry King
1790 - 1861 (71 years)
Henry King was an American politician who served as a Jacksonian member of the U.S. House of Representatives for Pennsylvania's 7th congressional district from 1831 to 1833 and Pennsylvania's 8th congressional district from 1833 to 1835.
Go to Profile#4260
Anthony Ashley Bevan
1859 - 1933 (74 years)
Anthony Ashley Bevan, FBA was a British orientalist. He was the son of the banker Robert Cooper Lee Bevan, and his second wife, the translator and poet Frances Bevan. Frances was the author of the famous book Three Friends of God, and Songs of Eternal Life.
Go to Profile#4261
Jacob Goldenthal
1815 - 1867 (52 years)
Jacob Goldenthal was an academic orientalist born in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. He studied ancient languages at the University of Leipzig and received his Ph.D. there in 1845. Publications Al-Ghazalis Meisan al-Almal A German translation of Criterion of ActionTodrosis hebräische Bearbeitung des Averroesschen Kommentars zu Aristoteles' Rhetorik Kalonymi apologia Maimonidis Nissim ben Jakobs Clavis talmudica Rieti und Marini oder Dante und Ovid in hebräischer Umkleidung
Go to Profile#4262
Zeno
500 - 500 (0 years)
Flavius Zeno was an influential general and politician of the Eastern Roman Empire, of Isaurian origin, who served as magister militum per Orientem, and became consul and patricius. Biography Zeno was of Isaurian origin and had a brother, who died before 448.
Go to Profile#4263
Alfred Gilmore
1812 - 1858 (46 years)
Alfred Gilmore was a Democratic member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Pennsylvania. Biography Alfred Gilmore was born in Butler, Pennsylvania. He was graduated from Washington College in Washington, Pennsylvania, in 1833. He studied law, was admitted to the bar in 1836 and commenced practice in Butler.
Go to Profile#4264
James Monroe
1799 - 1870 (71 years)
James Monroe was an American politician who served as the United States representative from New York . He was the nephew of President James Monroe. Early life James Monroe was born in Albemarle County, Virginia on September 10, 1799. He was born to Ann Monroe and Andrew Augustine Monroe . His father was the older brother of his namesake and future president, James Monroe .
Go to Profile#4265
Sylvester Gilbert
1755 - 1846 (91 years)
Sylvester Gilbert was a United States representative from Connecticut. He was born in Hebron, Connecticut. He pursued classical studies and was graduated from Dartmouth College in 1775. Later, he studied law, was admitted to the bar in November 1777, and commenced practice in Hebron.
Go to Profile#4266
Henry Albert Schultens
1749 - 1793 (44 years)
Hendrik Albert Schultens was a third generation Dutch linguist. Life Shultens was born in Herborn. He was the son of Jan Jacob Schultens, orientalist and professor at Leiden University and Suzanna Amalia Schramm, and was the grandson of Albert Schultens. Schultens studied orientalism in Leiden. He traveled to England and studied at Wadham College, Oxford, where he became Magister Artium, honoris causa, in 1773. He became professor in Eastern languages, first in Amsterdam, and then in Leiden. He married Catharina Elisabeth de Sitter.
Go to Profile#4267
Johann Christian Wilhelm Augusti
1772 - 1841 (69 years)
Johann Christian Wilhelm Augusti was a German theologian. Life He was born at Eschenbergen, near Gotha, Augusti was of Jewish descent, his grandfather having been a converted rabbi. He was educated at the gymnasium of Gotha and the University of Jena. At Jena he studied oriental languages, of which he became a professor there in 1803. Subsequently, he was professor of theology , and for a time rector, at the University of Breslau. In 1819 he transferred as a professor of theology to the University of Bonn. In 1828 he was appointed chief member of the consistorial council at Koblenz. There he was afterwards made director of the Rhenish Consistory of the Evangelical Church in Prussia.
Go to Profile#4268
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.
Go to Profile#4269
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.
Go to Profile#4270
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.
Go to Profile#4271
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.
Go to Profile#4272
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.
Go to Profile#4273
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.
Go to Profile#4274
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.
Go to Profile#4275
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...
Go to Profile#4276
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 .
Go to Profile#4277
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...
Go to Profile#4278
Sun Ce
175 - 200 (25 years)
Sun Ce , courtesy name Bofu, was a Chinese military general, politician, and warlord who lived during the late Eastern Han dynasty of China. He was the eldest child of Sun Jian, who was killed during the Battle of Xiangyang when Sun Ce was only 16. Sun Ce then broke away from his father's overlord, Yuan Shu, and headed to the Jiangdong region in southern China to establish his own power base there. With the help of several people, such as Zhang Zhao and Zhou Yu, Sun Ce managed to lay down the foundation of the state of Eastern Wu during the Three Kingdoms period.
Go to Profile#4279
Martha Coffin Wright
1806 - 1875 (69 years)
Martha Coffin Wright was an American feminist, abolitionist, and signatory of the Declaration of Sentiments who was a close friend and supporter of Harriet Tubman. Early life Martha Coffin was born in Boston, Massachusetts on Christmas Day 1806, the youngest child of Anna Folger and Thomas Coffin, a merchant and former Nantucket ship captain. Martha was the youngest of eight children. Some of her well-known siblings were Sarah, Lucretia, Eliza, Mary, and Thomas. All of her siblings were born in Nantucket. When she was two years old, the family moved to Philadelphia, where Martha was educated at Quaker schools.
Go to Profile#4280
Albert VII, Archduke of Austria
1559 - 1621 (62 years)
Albert VII was the ruling Archduke of Austria for a few months in 1619 and, jointly with his wife, Isabella Clara Eugenia, sovereign of the Habsburg Netherlands between 1598 and 1621. Prior to this, he had been a cardinal, Archbishop of Toledo, viceroy of Portugal and Governor General of the Habsburg Netherlands. He succeeded his brother Matthias as reigning archduke of Lower and Upper Austria, but abdicated in favor of Ferdinand II the same year, making it the shortest reign in Austrian history.
Go to Profile#4281
Roland Michener
1900 - 1991 (91 years)
Daniel Roland Michener was a Canadian lawyer, politician, and diplomat who served as Governor General of Canada, the 20th since Canadian Confederation. Michener was born and educated in Alberta. In 1917 he served briefly in the Royal Air Force. He acquired a university degree, then attended the University of Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar. Michener then returned to Canada and practised law before entering politics. He was elected to the House of Commons in 1957, where he served as speaker until 1962, and then served in diplomatic postings between 1964 and 1967. After that he was appointed Governor General by Queen Elizabeth II on the recommendation of Prime Minister of Canada Lester B.
Go to Profile#4282
Francis Wilson
1901 - 1976 (75 years)
Francis Graham Wilson , was a professor of political science at the University of Illinois .
Go to Profile#4283
Justus Olshausen
1800 - 1882 (82 years)
Justus Olshausen was a German orientalist who made contributions to Semitic and Iranian philology. Biography Olshausen was born in Hohenfelde, and studied at Kiel, Berlin and Paris, where he was a student of Silvestre de Sacy . From 1830 to 1852 he was a professor at the University of Kiel, where he was appointed curator in 1848. In 1852 he was removed from his position at Kiel by the Danish government, which he had energetically opposed, and subsequently became a professor of Oriental languages at the University of Königsberg.
Go to Profile#4284
Johan Hendrik Caspar Kern
1833 - 1917 (84 years)
Johan Hendrik Caspar Kern was a Dutch linguist and Orientalist. In the literature, he is usually referred to as H. Kern or Hendrik Kern; a few other scholars bear the same surname. Life Hendrik Kern was born to Dutch parents in the Central-Javanese town of Purworejo in the Dutch East Indies,; however, when he was six, his family repatriated to the Netherlands. When he entered grammar school, he added the extra-curricular subjects of English and Italian to his studies.
Go to Profile#4285
Thomas Attributed Name. Hobbes
#4286
Antoine Galland
1646 - 1715 (69 years)
Antoine Galland was a French orientalist and archaeologist, most famous as the first European translator of One Thousand and One Nights, which he called Les mille et une nuits. His version of the tales appeared in twelve volumes between 1704 and 1717 and exerted a significant influence on subsequent European literature and attitudes to the Islamic world. Jorge Luis Borges has suggested that Romanticism began when his translation was first read.
Go to Profile#4287
William O'Dwyer
1890 - 1964 (74 years)
William O'Dwyer was an Irish-American politician who served as the 100th Mayor of New York City, holding that office from 1946 to 1950. O'Dwyer went on to serve President Harry Truman as Ambassador to Mexico from 1950–1952. O'Dwyer began his political career by serving as the Kings County District Attorney from 1940–45. His brother Paul O'Dwyer served as President of the City Council from 1973–77, and his nephew Brian O'Dwyer was appointed by Governor Kathy Hochul as New York State Gaming Commission Chair in 2022.
Go to Profile#4288
Filippo Bernardini
1884 - 1954 (70 years)
Filippo Bernardini was an Italian prelate of the Catholic Church. He spent almost his entire career in the diplomatic service of the Holy See and was given the rank of archbishop in 1933. He was Apostolic Delegate to Australia for two years before taking up the position of Apostolic Nuncio to Switzerland where he served from 1935 to 1953. During World War II, he was active in the Catholic resistance to Nazism and provided assistance to Jews during the Nazi Holocaust. He served briefly as Secretary of the Congregation for Propagation of the Faith just before his death. Before entering the dipl...
Go to Profile#4289
Friedrich Eduard Schulz
1799 - 1829 (30 years)
Friedrich Eduard Schulz was a German philosopher and orientalist, who was one of the first to uncover evidence of the Kingdom of Urartu. Research on Urartu In 1827, the French scholar Antoine-Jean Saint-Martin recommended that his government send Schulz, then a young professor at the University of Giessen, to the area around Lake Van in what is now eastern Turkey on behalf of the French Oriental Society. Schulz discovered and copied numerous cuneiform inscriptions, partly in Assyrian and partly in a hitherto unknown language. Schulz also re-discovered the Kelishin stele, bearing an Assyrian-Urartian bilingual inscription, located on the Kelishin pass on the current Iraqi-Iranian border.
Go to Profile#4290
Adam Clayton Powell Jr.
1908 - 1972 (64 years)
Adam Clayton Powell Jr. was an American Baptist pastor and politician who represented the Harlem neighborhood of New York City in the United States House of Representatives from 1945 until 1971. He was the first African American to be elected to Congress from New York, as well as the first from any state in the Northeast. Re-elected for nearly three decades, Powell became a powerful national politician of the Democratic Party, and served as a national spokesman on civil rights and social issues. He also urged United States presidents to support emerging nations in Africa and Asia as they gain...
Go to Profile#4291
Theodor Nöldeke
1836 - 1930 (94 years)
Theodor Nöldeke was a German orientalist and scholar. His research interests ranged over Old Testament studies, Semitic languages and Arabic, Persian and Syriac literature. Nöldeke translated several important works of oriental literature and during his lifetime was considered an important orientalist. He wrote numerous studies and contributed articles to the Encyclopædia Britannica.
Go to Profile#4292
Fritz Hommel
1854 - 1936 (82 years)
Fritz Hommel was a German Orientalist. Biography Hommel was born on 31 July 1854 in Ansbach. He studied in Leipzig and was habilitated in 1877 in Munich, where in 1885, he became an extraordinary professor of Semitic languages. He became a full professor in 1892, and after his retirement in 1925, continued to give lectures at the University of Munich. He was the doctoral supervisor of Muhammad Iqbal, who wrote the thesis The Development of Metaphysics in Persia under his supervision.
Go to Profile#4293
Gyula Mészáros
1883 - 1957 (74 years)
Gyula Mészáros was a Hungarian ethnographer, Orientalist and Turkologist. Later in his career he became involved in a money counterfeiting scheme. Money counterfeiting In 1921, a group of Hungarian nationalists led by Mészáros set up a press in the town of Metzelsdorf outside Graz, Austria. The group managed to produce and put into circulation 60,000 500-Czechoslovak koruna banknotes, with the intent of damaging the Czechoslovak economy. Most of the forgers were arrested in July 1921, by that time the Czechoslovak government was forced to pull the entire sokol note series out of circulation, undermining the credibility of its currency reforms.
Go to Profile#4294
Reynold A. Nicholson
1868 - 1945 (77 years)
Reynold Alleyne Nicholson, FBA , or R. A. Nicholson, was an eminent English orientalist, scholar of both Islamic literature and Islamic mysticism and widely regarded as one of the greatest Rumi scholars and translators in the English language.
Go to Profile#4295
Vasily Bartold
1869 - 1930 (61 years)
Vasily Vladimirovich Bartold , who published in the West under his German baptism name, Wilhelm Barthold, was a Russian orientalist who specialized in the history of Islam and the Turkic peoples . Biography Barthold was born in St. Petersburg to a Russianized German family. His career spanned the last decades of the Russian Empire and the first years of the Soviet Union.
Go to Profile#4296
Miles Franklin
1879 - 1954 (75 years)
Stella Maria Sarah Miles Franklin , known as Miles Franklin, was an Australian writer and feminist who is best known for her novel My Brilliant Career, published by Blackwoods of Edinburgh in 1901. While she wrote throughout her life, her other major literary success, All That Swagger, was not published until 1936.
Go to Profile#4297
Paul de Lagarde
1827 - 1891 (64 years)
Paul Anton de Lagarde was a German biblical scholar and orientalist, sometimes regarded as one of the greatest orientalists of the 19th century. Lagarde's strong support of anti-Semitism, vocal opposition to Christianity, Social Darwinism and anti-Slavism are viewed as having been among the most influential in supporting the ideology of Nazism.
Go to Profile#4298
Gerrit van Poelje
1884 - 1976 (92 years)
Gerrit Abraham van Poelje was a Dutch civil servant, lawyer and Public Administration scholar. He is considered one of the most important founders of the science of Public Administration in The Netherlands.
Go to Profile#4299
Ármin Vámbéry
1832 - 1913 (81 years)
Ármin Vámbéry , also known as Arminius Vámbéry, was a Hungarian Turkologist and traveller. Early life Vámbéry was born in Svätý Jur Austrian Empire , into a poor Jewish family. According to Ernst Pawel, a biographer of Theodor Herzl, as well as Tom Reiss, a biographer of Kurban Said, Vámbéry's original last name was Wamberger rather than Bamberger. He was raised Jewish, but later became an atheist. Vámbéry was 1 year old when his father died and the family moved to Dunajská Streda .
Go to Profile#4300
Walter White
1893 - 1955 (62 years)
Walter Francis White was an American civil rights activist who led the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People for a quarter of a century, from 1929 until 1955. He directed a broad program of legal challenges to racial segregation and disfranchisement. He was also a journalist, novelist, and essayist.
Go to Profile