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,
#4351
William Bayard Cutting Jr.
1878 - 1910 (32 years)
William Bayard Cutting Jr. was an American diplomat who served as secretary to the U.S. embassy to the Court of St. James's. Early life Cutting was born in New York City on June 13, 1878, and grew up at Westbrook, the family estate in Long Island. He was the eldest of four children born to William Bayard Cutting and Olivia Peyton Cutting . His younger siblings included Justine Bayard Cutting, Bronson Murray Cutting, a U.S. Senator, and Olivia Murray Cutting, who married Henry James.
Go to Profile#4352
John Lindsay
1737 - 1788 (51 years)
Rear Admiral Sir John Lindsay, was a British naval officer of the 18th century, who achieved the rank of admiral late in his career. Joining the Navy during the Seven Years' War, he served off France, followed by service for several years as captain of a warship stationed in the West Indies. After war's end, he returned to Britain, serving as an MP for Aberdeen Burghs from 1767 to 1768. From August 1769 to March 1772 Lindsay was promoted to commodore and assigned as commander-in-chief of the East Indies Station. He resigned from the Navy for a period following the Battle of Ushant off the coast of France, during the American War of Independence.
Go to Profile#4353
Cecil Parrott
1909 - 1984 (75 years)
Sir Cecil Cuthbert Parrott was a British diplomat, translator, writer and scholar. After studies at Peterhouse, Cambridge, he became a teacher. He joined the Foreign Office in 1939. His diplomatic career culminated with his posting to Prague, where he was the British Ambassador from 1960 to 1966. On retiring from the Foreign Office, he became first Professor of Russian and Soviet Studies and later Professor of Central and South-Eastern European Studies and Director of the Comenius Centre at the University of Lancaster.
Go to Profile#4354
Georg Heinrich Bernstein
1787 - 1860 (73 years)
Georg Heinrich Bernstein was a German orientalist. Biography He was born at Cospeda, near Jena. He studied at the universities of Jena, Leipzig, and Göttingen, and in 1812 became an associate professor of oriental literature at the University of Berlin. In 1820 he was appointed a full professor at the University of Breslau. He died in Lauban.
Go to Profile#4355
John Carey
1490 - 1552 (62 years)
Sir John Cary , of Pleshey in Essex, was a courtier to King Henry VIII, whom he served as a Groom of the Privy Chamber, and of whom he was a third cousin, both being 4th in descent from John Beaufort, 1st Earl of Somerset .
Go to Profile#4356
Wilhelm Ahlwardt
1828 - 1909 (81 years)
Wilhelm Ahlwardt was a German orientalist who specialized in research of Arabic literature. He was the son of philologist Christian Wilhelm Ahlwardt . Biography He studied oriental philology at the University of Greifswald as a student of Johann Gottfried Ludwig Kosegarten and at the University of Göttingen under Heinrich Ewald. After graduation, he spent several years studying Arab manuscripts in libraries at Gotha and Paris. In 1856 he began work as an assistant librarian at Greifswald, obtaining his habilitation during the following year. In 1861 he became a professor at the university.
Go to Profile#4357
Isaac Hollister Hall
1837 - 1896 (59 years)
Isaac Hollister Hall was an American Orientalist. Biography He was born in Norwalk, Connecticut. He graduated at Hamilton College in 1859, was a tutor there in 1859–1863, graduated from Columbia Law School in 1865, practised law in New York City until 1875, and, during 1875–1877, taught in the Syrian Protestant College at Beirut, where he discovered a valuable Syriac manuscript of the Philoxenian version of a large part of the New Testament, which he published in part in facsimile in 1884.
Go to Profile#4358
Rudolf Ernst Brünnow
1858 - 1917 (59 years)
Rudolph Ernst Brünnow was a German-American orientalist and philologist. Life The son of the Berlin-born astronomer Franz Friedrich Ernst Brünnow, Rudolph Ernst was born during the period his father was living in the United States. In 1863 the father and son returned to Europe. In 1882 he was awarded a doctorate in philosophy at the University of Strasbourg.
Go to Profile#4359
Peter van Bohlen
1796 - 1840 (44 years)
Peter von Bohlen was a German Orientalist and Indologist. He was a professor at the University of Königsberg. He spent the first 20 years of his life in strained circumstances. His talents and perseverance attracted attention, and he obtained admission to the Hamburg gymnasium. He afterward studied the Eastern languages at Halle and Bonn. He then obtained an appointment at Königsberg, first in 1825 as extraordinary, and afterward in 1830 as ordinary professor of oriental literature.
Go to Profile#4360
Helen Brewster Owens
1881 - 1968 (87 years)
Helen Brewster Owens was an American suffragist and mathematician. Early life and education Helen Brewster Owens was born April 2, 1881, in Pleasanton, Kansas, to Clara and Robert Edward Brewster. Her mother, who was a teacher and president of the Lincoln County Women's Suffrage Association, prompted Brewster's interest in the movement from a young age. As a girl, she attended the 1893 County Fair with her mother where she helped distribute flyers of Frances Willard.
Go to Profile#4361
Lawrence A. Kimpton
1910 - 1973 (63 years)
Lawrence Alpheus Kimpton was an American philosopher and educator, and a president of the University of Chicago. He earned a B.A. at Stanford and a Ph.D. in philosophy at Cornell University, and he taught at Deep Springs College before joining Chicago as a professor of philosophy in 1943.
Go to Profile#4362
Alexander Hemphill
1921 - 1986 (65 years)
Alexander Hemphill was a Democratic lawyer and politician from Philadelphia who served as City Controller from 1958 to 1968. After service in World War II and graduation from the University of Pennsylvania Law School, Hemphill embarked on a legal career before running for office. In his three terms as city controller, he exposed corruption and malfeasance, often to the discomfort of his fellow Democrats. He ran for mayor of Philadelphia in 1967 against the incumbent Democrat, James Tate, but was unsuccessful, and retired to a private law practice until his death in 1986.
Go to Profile#4363
Jacob Alting
1618 - 1679 (61 years)
Jacob Alting studied in Groningen and was ordained as a Church of England priest. He was named professor of theology at Groningen University in 1667 after holding the chair of oriental languages since 1641. His publications were overseen in 1687 by Balthasar Bekker, and argued with Maresius on biblical exegesis when the latter accused him of heterodoxy .
Go to Profile#4364
Arthur Lindsay Sadler
1882 - 1970 (88 years)
Arthur Lindsay Sadler was Professor of Oriental Studies at the University of Sydney. Life and career Sadler was born in Hackney, London and educated at the University of Oxford . From 1909 he worked in Japan as a teacher and was an active member of the Asiatic Society of Japan.
Go to Profile#4365
Richard Bennett
1609 - 1675 (66 years)
Richard Bennett was an English planter and Governor of the Colony of Virginia, serving 1652–1655. He had first come to the Virginia colony in 1629 to represent his merchant uncle Edward Bennett's business, managing his plantation known as Bennett's Welcome in Warrascoyack . Two decades later, Bennett immigrated to the Maryland colony with his family, and settled on the Severn River in Anne Arundel County.
Go to Profile#4366
David Kelly
1891 - 1959 (68 years)
Sir David Victor Kelly was a British diplomat who was Minister to Switzerland and Ambassador to Argentina, Turkey, and the Soviet Union. Education Kelly was educated at St Paul's School, London, and Magdalen College, Oxford, where he was a demy and gained a first class degree in modern history in 1913.
Go to Profile#4367
Sixtinus Amama
1593 - 1629 (36 years)
Sixtinus Amama was a Dutch Reformed theologian and orientalist. Amama was among the first to advocate a thorough knowledge of the original languages of the Bible as indispensable to theologians. Life He was born in Franeker, in the Dutch province of Friesland. He studied oriental languages from 1610 at the University of Franeker and then at the University of Oxford, attracted there by John Prideaux. In 1614 he took up also the study of Arabic at the University of Leyden where he made the acquaintance of Thomas Erpenius.
Go to Profile#4368
Franciscus Raphelengius
1539 - 1597 (58 years)
Frans van Ravelingen Latinized Franciscus Raphelengius , was a Flemish-born scholar, printer and publisher, working in Antwerp and later in Leiden. During the last decade of his life he was professor of Hebrew at Leiden University. He produced an Arabic-Latin dictionary, of about 550 pages, which was published posthumously in 1613 in Leiden. This was the first publication by printing press of a book-length dictionary for the Arabic language in Latin.
Go to Profile#4369
Li Tieh-tseng
1906 - 1990 (84 years)
Li Tieh-tseng was a Chinese ambassador.In 1928, shortly after graduation, he was appointed county magistrate of Nan County but was forced to leave.Since then he taught at the School of Law at the Wuhan University.From 1932 to 1936 he was secretary of the embassy in London, the capital of the United Kingdom.From 1937 to 1942 he was minister next to Reza Shah in Tehran with concurrent accreditation in Baghdad .From until he was ambassador in Tehran with concurrent accreditation in Baghdad.On he was designated ambassador to Bangkok where he was accredited from till .In 1949 he was resident...
Go to Profile#4370
Richard Parker
1810 - 1893 (83 years)
Richard Parker was a nineteenth-century politician, lawyer, and judge from Virginia. Biography Born in Richmond, Virginia, son of Judge and Senator Richard E. Parker. Parker studied law at the University of Virginia, and was admitted to the bar, commencing practice in Berryville, Virginia, near Winchester, where he lived. He was the paymaster at the Harpers Ferry Armory, and was also a slave owner.
Go to Profile#4371
John Richardson
1667 - 1753 (86 years)
John Richardson was an English Quaker minister and autobiographer. Early life John Richardson was born in 1667, probably in the village of North Cave, East Riding of Yorkshire, where his father, William Richardson , a shepherd, had been converted to Quakerism by William Dewsberry or Dewsbury in about 1652. He was twelve when his father died, leaving his mother with a livestock farm to run and five children. John had one older sister, who died about 1682, and three younger brothers, of whom the youngest was born about 1676.
Go to Profile#4372
Reinhart Dozy
1820 - 1883 (63 years)
Reinhart Pieter Anne Dozy was a Dutch scholar of French origin, who was born in Leiden. He was an Orientalist scholar of Arabic language, history and literature. Biography The Dozys, like other contemporary French families, emigrated to the Low Countries after the revocation of the edict of Nantes, but some of the former appear to have settled in the Netherlands as early as 1647. Dozy studied at the University of Leiden, obtained the degree of doctor in 1844, was appointed an extraordinary professor of history in 1850, and professor in 1857. Dozy was a correspondent of the Royal Institute between 1848 and 1851.
Go to Profile#4373
Nathan Smith
1770 - 1835 (65 years)
#4374
Valentine de Balla
1899 - 1957 (58 years)
Valentine de Balla , also known as Valentin de Balla and Valentin Balla de Iregh, was a Hungarian political scientist who taught at several American colleges from the 1930s to the 1950s. Born on October 23, 1899, in Újvidék, Hungary , de Balla graduated from the Theresian Military Academy in Wiener Neustadt, and then from the Sorbonne in Paris, where he studied international law. He then studied at Johns Hopkins University, where he received the Ph.D. . His dissertation, "The New Balance of Power in Europe," was published the following year by The Johns Hopkins Press.
Go to Profile#4375
Aaron Ward
1790 - 1867 (77 years)
Aaron Ward was an American lawyer and politician from New York. He served three separate stints in the U.S. House of Representatives during the early-to-mid-19th Century. Life He was born in Sing Sing, Westchester County, New York the son of Moses Ward. He completed preparatory studies in Mount Pleasant Academy, and then studied law. At the beginning of the War of 1812 he was commissioned a lieutenant in the 29th Regiment of Infantry, and in 1814 commissioned a captain. Afterwards he continued to serve in the State Militia, and in 1830 he was promoted to major general. After the war, he resu...
Go to Profile#4376
Italo Pizzi
1849 - 1920 (71 years)
Italo Pizzi was an Italian academic and scholar of Persian language and literature. He was the first to establish the academic field of Persian language and literature in Italy. Biography From a noble family, at age fifteen Pizzi showed a particular interest in studies of oriental languages and in high school he was encouraged by his Latin and Greek teacher, a Sanskritist, to deepen those studies.
Go to Profile#4377
Paul L. Adams
1908 - 1990 (82 years)
Paul Lincoln Adams was an American lawyer, politician, and judge from Michigan. He served as a mayor of Sault Ste. Marie, as a member of the University of Michigan Board of Regents, as Michigan Attorney General, and as a justice of the Michigan Supreme Court.
Go to Profile#4378
William Edwards Huntington
1844 - 1930 (86 years)
William Edwards Huntington was an American university dean and president. He was born at Hillsboro, Illinois, served as private and first lieutenant in the Wisconsin Infantry in 1864–1865, and was educated at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and at Boston University , where he was dean of the College of Liberal Arts from 1884 to 1904, president of the university in 1904–1911, and dean of the graduate department after 1911. In early life he was a Methodist minister, having been ordained in 1868, and he held pastorates in Massachusetts at Nahant , Roslindale , Newton , Cambridge , and Bosto...
Go to Profile#4379
Stanley Leathes
1830 - 1900 (70 years)
Stanley Leathes was an English theologian and Orientalist. Biography He was born at Ellesborough, Buckinghamshire, the son of the Rev. Chaloner Stanley Leathes, and was educated at Jesus College, Cambridge, where he graduated B.A. in 1852, M.A. 1853. In 1853 he was awarded a Tyrwhitt's Hebrew scholarship. He was ordained priest in 1857, and after serving several curacies was appointed professor of Hebrew at King's College London, in 1863. In 1868–1870 he was Boyle lecturer , in 1873 Hulsean lecturer , in 1874 Bampton Lecturer and from 1876 to 1880 Warburtonian lecturer.
Go to Profile#4380
August Ferdinand Mehren
1822 - 1907 (85 years)
August Ferdinand Michael van Mehren was a Danish Orientalist and philologist. Early life and education Mehren was born in Helsingør, the son of merchant Johann Friedrich van Mehren and Claudine Amalie Liebmann . He studied at the Universities of Copenhagen, Leipzig and Kiel, obtaining his doctorate in 1845. In Leipzig he was a student of Heinrich Leberecht Fleischer , and in Kiel he studied under Justus Olshausen .
Go to Profile#4381
Friedrich von Spiegel
1820 - 1905 (85 years)
Friedrich Spiegel was a German orientalist. He was one of the pioneers in the field of Iranian philology. Biography He was born in Kitzingen, studied at Erlangen, Leipzig, and Bonn, then spent five years in the libraries of Copenhagen, Paris, London, and Oxford, and from 1849 to 1890 was professor of oriental languages in the University of Erlangen. His early studies on Pali and the publication of the Kammavâkya and the Ancedota Palica did much for the knowledge of southern Buddhism. They were quickly followed by his researches on Zoroastrianism and the Avesta. The edition of the greater p...
Go to Profile#4382
Eric Wollencott Barnes
1907 - 1962 (55 years)
Eric Wollencott Barnes was an American educator, diplomat, actor, and writer. Education Barnes attended public schools in Little Rock. He entered UCLA in 1925, and in 1926 transferred to L'École des Sciences Politiques in Paris, where he graduated in 1930. He received a diplome d'études superieures from the University of Paris in 1931, followed by a fellowship at the Sorbonne, then obtained a teaching post at the University of Paris in 1932.
Go to Profile#4383
Winfield Scott Chaplin
1847 - 1918 (71 years)
Winfield Scott Chaplin was the chancellor of Washington University in St. Louis from 1891 until 1907. Early life Winfield Scott Chaplin was born in Maine in 1847 and graduated from West Point in 1870 as a second lieutenant of artillery. After resigning in 1872, Chaplin held a number of academic positions in civil and mechanical engineering; including Maine State College, Imperial University in Tokyo, Harvard University, and Union College. He served as dean of the Lawrence Scientific School at Harvard for six years before being named Chancellor of Washington University in St. Louis at age 43...
Go to Profile#4384
John Robertson
1787 - 1873 (86 years)
John Robertson was a nineteenth-century politician and lawyer from the U.S. state of Virginia. He was the brother of Thomas B. Robertson and Wyndham Robertson. Biography Born at "Bellefield" near Petersburg, Virginia, Robertson completed preparatory studies and graduated from the College of William and Mary. He studied law and was admitted to the bar, commencing practice in Richmond, Virginia. He served as Attorney General of Virginia before being elected an Anti-Jacksonian and Whig to the United States House of Representatives to fill a vacancy, serving from 1834 to 1839. Afterwards, Roberts...
Go to Profile#4385
Jesse E. Moorland
1863 - 1940 (77 years)
Jesse Edward Moorland was an American minister, community executive, civic leader and book collector. Born in Coldwater, Ohio, he was the only child of a farming family. Moorland attended Northwestern Normal University in Ada, Ohio. Then he moved to Washington D. C., where he attended the Theological department of Howard University and earned his master's degree in 1891. He was ordained a Congressional minister. That same year he was hired as secretary of the Washington D.C. branch of the YMCA.
Go to Profile#4386
F. W. S. Craig
1929 - 1989 (60 years)
Frederick Walter Scott Craig was a Scottish psephologist and compiler of the standard reference books covering United Kingdom Parliamentary election results. He originally worked in public relations, compiling election results in his spare time which were published by the Scottish Unionist Party. In the late 1960s he launched his own business as a publisher of reference books, and also compiled various other statistics concerning British politics.
Go to Profile#4387
William Hodge Mill
1792 - 1853 (61 years)
William Hodge Mill was an English churchman and orientalist, the first principal of Bishop’s College, Calcutta and later Regius Professor of Hebrew at Cambridge. Life He was son of John Mill, a native of Dundee, by his wife Martha née Hodge, and was born 18 July 1792 at Hackney, Middlesex. He was educated chiefly in private under Thomas Belsham. In 1809 he went to Trinity College, Cambridge, where he graduated B.A. as sixth wrangler in 1813, was elected Fellow in 1814, and proceeded M.A. in 1816. He took deacon's orders in 1817, and priest's in the following year, and continuing in residenc...
Go to Profile#4388
Niels Krag
1568 - 1602 (34 years)
Niels Krag , was a Danish academic and diplomat. Krag was a Doctor of Divinity, Professor at the University of Copenhagen, and historiographer Royal. Mission to Scotland In August 1589 the Danish council decided that Peder Munk, Breide Rantzau, Dr Paul Knibbe, and Niels Krag would accompany Anne of Denmark, the bride of James VI, to Scotland. After several mishaps, poor weather, and "contrary winds" they decided to stay at Oslo over the winter.
Go to Profile#4389
John Richardson
1740 - 1795 (55 years)
John Richardson , FAS of Wadham College, Oxford, was the editor of the first Persian-Arabic-English dictionary in 1778–1780. His seminal work on Persian grammar, written in collaboration with Sir William Jones, was noteworthy amongst the early works on this subject; and it remains significant in the context of that philological foundation from which all subsequent grammatical studies were to evolve.
Go to Profile#4390
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#4391
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#4392
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#4393
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#4394
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#4395
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#4396
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#4397
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#4398
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#4399
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#4400
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