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.
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List of the most influential people in Political Science,
#4551
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.
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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...
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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...
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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.
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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...
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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
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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.
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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.
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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 .
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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...
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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 .
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Turrell V. Wylie
1927 - 1984 (57 years)
Turrell Verl "Terry" Wylie was an American scholar, Tibetologist, sinologist and professor known as one of the 20th century's leading scholars of Tibet. He taught as a professor of Tibetan Studies at the University of Washington and served as the first chair of the Department of Asian Languages and Literature. Wylie founded the Tibetan Studies program at the University of Washington, the first of its kind in the United States, setting a major precedent for future programs and research in the field. His system for rendering the Tibetan language in Latin script, known as Wylie transliteration, ...
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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.
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Morton Grodzins
1917 - 1964 (47 years)
Morton M. Grodzins was a professor of political science at the University of Chicago, as well as a dean of the school and an editor at Chicago University Press. He is known for coining the term "tipping point" in studies of white flight, such as "Metropolitan Segregation" and The Metropolitan Area as a Racial Problem . His theories related to Tipping Point were later made famous by Malcolm Gladwell and his book, "The Tipping Point." His book Americans Betrayed was the first major study criticizing the Japanese-American internment during World War II, based on his and others' work at the Japanese-American Evacuation and Resettlement Study at University of California, Berkeley.
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Robert K. Carr
1908 - 1979 (71 years)
Robert Kenneth Carr was an American scholar in the field of government/political science. His main area of interest and expertise was in the field of civil liberties/civil rights, and he did the bulk of his writing while on the faculty of Dartmouth College. Carr also served as the executive secretary of President Harry S. Truman's Committee on Civil Rights. He was the primary author of the committee's landmark report, "To Secure These Rights" , which spotlighted the need for more rigorous federal enforcement of civil rights. He served as president of Oberlin College, Ohio, from 1960–1970.
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Dolf Sternberger
1907 - 1989 (82 years)
Dolf Sternberger was a German philosopher and political scientist at the University of Heidelberg. Dolf Sternberger is known for his concept of citizenship in contemporary German political thought, and for coining the term "constitutional patriotism" in 1979, on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the Federal Republic of Germany.
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Alexander Nikuradse
1900 - 1981 (81 years)
Alexander Nikuradse , also known by his pseudonym Al. Sanders, was a Georgian-German physicist and Nazi political scientist. Born in Samtredia, Georgia, Russian Empire, he was sent by the Georgian government to complete his studies in Berlin. Nikuradse remained in Berlin and became a German citizen after the 1921 Red Army invasion of Georgia. Being in staunch opposition to Soviet rule in Georgia, he was actively involved in Georgian émigré activities, and had close Nazi connections. Since their common days as Soviet exiles in Munich in the early 1920s, he had been on friendly terms with Alfred Rosenberg whose views on the Caucasus were largely shaped under Nikuradse's influence.
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Billy Dudley
1931 - 1980 (49 years)
Billy Joseph Stanley Oritsesaninomi Dudley was a leading Nigerian political scientist, working mostly at the University of Ibadan , which he joined in 1959. Until late 1962, he was on the staff of the Extra Mural Department of UI, and from 1960 to 1962 he was based in Zaria, where he began the research that he later supplemented with research in London, England, during periods of leave in 1961, 1963, and 1965, each lasting several months. His resulting PhD was published in 1968 as Parties and Politics in Northern Nigeria. He became a Professor at UI in 1971 and Head of department in 1972.
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Francis D. Wormuth
1909 - 1980 (71 years)
Francis Dunham Wormuth was an American lawyer and teacher, having been a Distinguished Professor at the University of Utah.
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Mercer Cook
1903 - 1987 (84 years)
Will Mercer Cook , popularly known as Mercer Cook, was a diplomat and professor. He was the first American ambassador to the Gambia after it became independent, appointed in 1965 while also still serving as ambassador to Senegal. He was also the second American ambassador to Niger.
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F. S. Northedge
1918 - 1985 (67 years)
Frederick Samuel Northedge was a British Professor of International Relations at the London School of Economics. Early life He attended Bemrose Grammar School in Derby. Northedge then read classics at Merton College, Oxford, before moving on to study international relations at the London School of Economics.
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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.
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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...
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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...
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Peter A. Boodberg
1903 - 1972 (69 years)
Peter Alexis Boodberg was a Russian-American scholar, linguist, and sinologist who taught at the University of California, Berkeley for 40 years. Boodberg was influential in 20th century developments in the studies of the development of Chinese characters, Chinese philology, and Chinese historical phonology. He has been described as "one of the most original and commanding scholars" of the 20th century.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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' .
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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.
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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.
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