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 …
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List of the most influential people
#34551
Paul D. Hanson
#34563
Overall Influence
1939 - Present (87 years)
Paul David Hanson was an American biblical scholar who taught for 40 years at Harvard Divinity School in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Hanson spent his whole career at Harvard Divinity School, starting out in 1971 as an Assistant Professor of Old Testament. He was appointed the Florence Corliss Lamont Professor of Divinity and Bussey Professor of Divinity . Upon his retirement from the active faculty in 2009, he became the Florence Corliss Lamont Research Professor of Divinity.
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Arthur Thomas Hatto
#34564
Overall Influence
1910 - 2010 (100 years)
Arthur Thomas Hatto was an English scholar of German studies at the University of London, notable for translations of the Medieval German narrative poems Tristan by Gottfried von Strassburg, Parzival by Wolfram von Eschenbach, and the Nibelungenlied. He was also known for his theory of epic heroic poetry, and related publications. He retired in 1977, and in 1991 the British Academy elected him as a Senior Fellow.
Go to Profile#34553
Alexis Bonnet
#34565
Overall Influence
1966 - Present (60 years)
Alexis Bonnet is a French mathematician and investor. For his research on partial differential equations he was awarded the 1996 EMS Prize. He earned his doctorate from Pierre and Marie Curie University in 1992, under supervision of Henri Berestycki.
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Abdulsalami Abubakar
#34566
Overall Influence
1942 - Present (84 years)
Abdulsalami Abubakar is a Nigerian statesman and retired Nigerian army general who served as the military head of state of Nigeria from 1998 to 1999. He was also Chief of Defence Staff from 1997 to 1998. He succeeded General Sani Abacha upon his death.
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Chris Hemsworth
#34567
Overall Influence
1983 - Present (43 years)
Christopher Hemsworth is an Australian actor. He rose to prominence playing Kim Hyde in the Australian television series Home and Away before beginning a film career in Hollywood. In the Marvel Cinematic Universe , Hemsworth started playing Thor with the 2011 film of the same name and most recently reprised the role in Thor: Love and Thunder , which established him among the world's highest-paid actors.
Go to Profile#34556
Rod Taylor
#34568
Overall Influence
1930 - 2015 (85 years)
Rodney Sturt Taylor was an Australian actor. He appeared in more than 50 feature films, including Young Cassidy , Nobody Runs Forever , The Train Robbers and A Matter of Wife... and Death . Taylor was born in Lidcombe, a suburb of Sydney, to a father who was a steel construction contractor and commercial artist and a mother who was a children's author. He began taking art classes in high school, and continued in college. He decided to become an actor after seeing Laurence Olivier in an Old Vic touring production of Richard III.
Go to Profile#34557
Philip David Zelazo
#34569
Overall Influence
1966 - Present (60 years)
Philip David Zelazo is a developmental psychologist and neuroscientist. His research has helped shape the field of developmental cognitive neuroscience regarding the development of executive function .
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Joseph Sax
#34570
Overall Influence
1936 - 2014 (78 years)
Joseph Lawrence Sax was an environmental law professor, known for developing the public trust doctrine. Born and raised in Chicago, Sax graduated from Harvard University in 1957 and then earned a J.D. degree in 1959 from the University of Chicago Law School. After a few years in private practice and at the Department of Justice he began teaching, first with the University of Colorado in 1962 and then at the University of Michigan in 1965. He joined the University of California, Berkeley School of Law in 1986.
Go to Profile#34559
Benton Johnson
#34571
Overall Influence
1928 - Present (98 years)
Guy Benton Johnson Jr. is an American sociologist and professor emeritus of the University of Oregon's Department of Sociology. Biography Guy Benton Johnson Jr. was born in Chapel Hill, North Carolina on August 19, 1928, the son of Guy Benton Johnson and Guion Griffis Johnson. He was named after his father, but was called "Benny" and continued to use "Benton" in adulthood.
Go to Profile#34560
Thomas Allibone
#34572
Overall Influence
1903 - 2003 (100 years)
Thomas Edward Allibone, CBE, FRS was an English physicist. His work included important research into particle physics, X-rays, high voltage equipment, and electron microscopes. Early life Thomas Edward Allibone was born at Nether Hallam, Sheffield in 1903, son of Henry James Allibone, a schoolteacher, and Eliza , a farmer's daughter. He was educated at the Central School in Sheffield followed by a Pass degree in physics at Sheffield University. In 1925, Allibone was awarded a scholarship by the Metropolitan-Vickers company to study the properties of zirconium. He left Sheffield in 1926 to continue his postgraduate studies at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge University.
Go to Profile#34561
James C. Hickman
#34573
Overall Influence
1927 - 2006 (79 years)
James C. Hickman was an American actuary. He was internationally publicized for his work in actuarial education as well as being a major contribution in the development of the actuarial profession. He was a professor emeritus of business and statistics and former dean of the University of Wisconsin–Madison School of Business.
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Neal Ashkanasy
#34574
Overall Influence
1945 - Present (81 years)
Neal M. Ashkanasy is an Australian academic best known for his work on emotions in the workplace. He was honored for his "service to tertiary education, to psychology and to the community." He began his career as a civil engineer but is now a Professor of Management at the University of Queensland Business School.
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Kim Raver
#34575
Overall Influence
1969 - Present (57 years)
Kim Raver is an American actress. She is known for television roles such as Dr. Teddy Altman on ABC's medical drama Grey's Anatomy, Kim Zambrano on Third Watch, and Audrey Raines on 24. Early life Kimberly Jayne Raver was born and raised in New York City by her mother. She attended Boston University, where she received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in drama.
Go to Profile#34564
Kiki Dee
#34576
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (79 years)
Pauline Matthews , better known by her stage name Kiki Dee, is an English pop singer. Known for her blue-eyed soul vocals, she was the first female singer from the UK to sign with Motown's Tamla Records.
Go to Profile#34565
Robert Barnett
#34577
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (73 years)
Robert Barnett is a Professorial Research Associate at SOAS , University of London and Affiliate Lecturer and Research Affiliate at the Lau China Institute, King's College, London. He is the former Director of the Modern Tibetan Studies Program, where he was Adjunct Professor of Contemporary Tibetan Studies and Senior Research Scholar in modern Tibetan history at the Weatherhead East Asian Institute at Columbia University. He retired from Columbia as of January 2018. He is also referred to as Robbie Barnett by the media.
Go to Profile#34566
Andrew Dice Clay
#34578
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (69 years)
Andrew Dice Clay is an American stand-up comedian and actor. He rose to prominence in the late 1980s with a brash, deliberately offensive persona known as "The Diceman". In 1990, he became the first stand-up comedian to sell out Madison Square Garden for two consecutive nights. That same year, he played the lead role in the comedy-mystery film The Adventures of Ford Fairlane.
Go to Profile#34567
Pierre Lévêque
#34579
Overall Influence
1921 - 2004 (83 years)
Pierre Lévêque was a 20th-century French historian of ancient and Hellenistic Greece. Biography Training The son of an engineer, he spent his youth in the port of Bordeaux. Reading Cité grecque by Gustave Glotz, pushed him towards literary studies: he was received in 1940 in the École normale supérieure de la rue d'Ulm then at the agrégation de lettres in 1944. A member of the French School at Athens from 1947 to 1952, he studied in Greece archaic statuary of Delos and excavated the site of Thasos. In 1955, under the direction of André Aymard, he defended his major thesis, dedicated to Pyrrh...
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Lawrence Mead
#34580
Overall Influence
1943 - Present (83 years)
Lawrence M. Mead III is a professor of politics and public policy at New York University . Education Born in Huntington, New York, Mead graduated Phi Beta Kappa with a B.A. from Amherst College in 1966, and from Harvard University with an M.A. and Ph.D. in 1968 and 1973.
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Mats Malm
#34581
Overall Influence
1964 - Present (62 years)
Mats Ulrik Malm is a Swedish literary writer and translator. On 18 October 2018, Malm was elected a member of the Swedish Academy, on 26 April 2019 he was elected the new Permanent Secretary and Speaker of the Swedish Academy.
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Graeme McDowell
#34582
Overall Influence
1979 - Present (47 years)
Graeme McDowell is a professional golfer from Northern Ireland. He has a total of eleven tournament victories on the European Tour, and four on the PGA Tour, including one major championship, the 2010 U.S. Open at Pebble Beach. In 2022, he joined LIV Golf. McDowell has also represented Ireland at the World Cup and he has been a member of the European Ryder Cup team on four occasions. He has appeared in the top-10 in the Official World Golf Ranking, with a highest ranking position of 4th .
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Sushant Singh Rajput
#34583
Overall Influence
1986 - 2020 (34 years)
Sushant Singh Rajput was an Indian actor known for his work in Hindi cinema. He starred in a number of commercially successful Hindi films such as M.S. Dhoni: The Untold Story , Kedarnath and Chhichhore . Due to his contribution to the film industry, he received a Screen Award and was nominated for the Filmfare Awards on three occasions. He appeared on Forbes India Celebrity 100 list twice since 2017.
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Antoine Fuqua
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#34584
Overall Influence
1965 - Present (61 years)
Antoine Fuqua is an American film director known for his work in the action and thriller genres. He was originally known as a director of music videos, and made his film debut in 1998 with The Replacement Killers. His critical breakthrough was the 2001 crime thriller Training Day.
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Andrzej Ziemiański
#34585
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (66 years)
Andrzej Ziemiański, also known as Patrick Shoughnessy , is a Polish author of fantasy, science fiction, thriller and crime, who by 2012 have sold over 500,000 copies of his books. Ziemiański was educated as an architect and he holds a PhD in architecture.
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DJ Shadow
#34586
Overall Influence
1972 - Present (54 years)
Joshua Paul Davis , better known by his stage name DJ Shadow, is an American DJ and record producer. His debut studio album, Endtroducing....., was released in 1996. Biography Early years DJ Shadow was experimenting with a four-track recorder while in high school in Davis, California, and began his music career as a disc jockey for the University of California, Davis, campus radio station KDVS. During this period, he explored the experimental hip-hop style associated with the London-based Mo' Wax record label. His early singles, including "In/Flux" and "Lost and Found ", were genre-bending, merging elements of funk, rock, hip hop, ambient, jazz, soul, and used-bin found records.
Go to Profile#34575
Cyril Garnham
#34587
Overall Influence
1901 - 1994 (93 years)
Percy Cyril Claude Garnham CMG FRS , was a British biologist and parasitologist. On his 90th birthday, he was called the "greatest living parasitologist". Early life and education Garnham was born in London, the son of Percy Claude Garnham , and Edith née Masham , an accomplished violinist. In World War I, his father served as a lieutenant in the Royal Navy and died at Gallipoli in 1915. He was educated at Paradise School and St Bartholomew's Hospital, London, and graduated in medicine in 1925. followed by a diploma in public health. In 1928 he was awarded an MD degree by the University of Lo...
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Volli Kalm
#34588
Overall Influence
1953 - 2017 (64 years)
Volli Kalm was an Estonian geologist who, from 1 July 2012 to his death on 23 December 2017, was the rector of the University of Tartu. Education and academic degrees Kalm graduated from Vändra Secondary School in 1971 and began studying geology at the University of Tartu, graduating in 1976. From 1980 to 1984, he was a graduate student at the Institute of Geology at the Estonian Academy of Sciences, defending his degree in geology with a dissertation "Formation, composition and use of glaciofluvial deposits in Estonia" in 1984. Between 1988 and 1989, he was a postdoctoral student at the Dep...
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Lorenzo Cohen
#34589
Overall Influence
Lorenzo Cohen is a professor in the Department of General Oncology and Behavioral Science and the director of the Integrative Medicine Program at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. He is also a distinguished clinical professor at the Fudan University Shanghai Cancer Center in Shanghai, China. Cohen is a founding member and past president of the Society for Integrative Oncology.
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José Mattoso
#34590
Overall Influence
1933 - 2023 (90 years)
José João da Conceição Gonçalves Mattoso was a Portuguese medievalist and university professor. Biography Mattoso was born on 22 January 1933. He earned his doctoral degree in medieval history from the Catholic University of Leuven, in Belgium, in 1966 , while he was Benedictine monk at the Abbey of Singeverga. He returned to secular life in 1970, and taught at the University of Lisbon and at the New University of Lisbon. He was also a director of National Archives / Torre do Tombo.
Go to Profile#34579
Denis Potvin
#34591
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (73 years)
Denis Charles Potvin is a Canadian former professional ice hockey defenceman and team captain for the New York Islanders of the National Hockey League . He is a four-time Stanley Cup winner as a member of the early 1980s New York Islanders. Potvin is also a three-time James Norris Memorial Trophy winner as the NHL's top defenceman. He was elected to the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1991 and served as a commentator for Ottawa Senators' television broadcasts on Sportsnet. Potvin is the former color commentator for the Florida Panthers. In 2017, he was named one of the "100 Greatest NHL Players" in hi...
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William Burley Lockwood
#34592
Overall Influence
1917 - 2012 (95 years)
William Burley Lockwood was a Professor of Germanic and Indo-European Philology at the University of Reading from 1968 until his retirement in 1982. Biography After leaving school and spending some time working and travelling in England, Germany, Austria and the Balkans, he went to Manchester University and obtained First Class Honours in German in 1942, followed by a DipEd and M.A. at Bristol University, where he received a distinction in practical teaching.
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Esther Kinsky
#34593
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (70 years)
Esther Kinsky is a German literary translator and the author of novels and poetry. Life and works Esther Kinsky grew up in North Rhine-Westphalia and read Slavonic studies at Bonn. She works as a literary translator from the Polish, English and Russian languages into German and as the author of prose and poetry. After spending some years in London, she settled in Berlin.
Go to Profile#34582
Allan Rosas
#34594
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (78 years)
Allan Viktor Johnsson Rosas is a Finnish jurist who served as a judge of the European Court of Justice from 2002 until 2019. Career Rosas is Doctor of Laws of the University of Turku ; and he was professor of Law at the University of Turku and at the Åbo Akademi University in Turku , also Director of the latter's Institute for Human Rights . He has held various international and national academic positions of responsibility and memberships of learned societies, and coordinated several international and national research projects and programmes, including in the fields of EU law, internation...
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Frank Anscombe
#34595
Overall Influence
1918 - 2001 (83 years)
Francis John Anscombe was an English statistician. Education and career Born in Hove in England, Anscombe was educated at Trinity College at Cambridge University. After serving in the Second World War, he joined Rothamsted Experimental Station for two years before returning to Cambridge as a lecturer.
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Gilles Guyot
#34596
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (80 years)
Gilles Guyot is a management professor at the Jean Moulin University Lyon 3 in Lyon, France. Guyot was born in Roanne, Loire. He is the current dean of the university business school, the IAE of Lyon. He was re-elected in this function in July 2007. Guyot had already been the dean of this business school from 1990 to 1997.
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John Olerud
#34597
Overall Influence
1968 - Present (58 years)
John Garrett Olerud, Jr. , nicknamed "Johnny O", is an American former professional baseball player. He played in Major League Baseball as a first baseman from through , most notably as a member of the Toronto Blue Jays team that won two consecutive World Series championships in and . He also played for the New York Mets, Seattle Mariners, New York Yankees, and Boston Red Sox.
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Wang Shaoguang
#34598
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (72 years)
Wang Shaoguang is a Chinese political scientist. He is currently an emeritus professor at the Department of Government and Public Administration of the Chinese University of Hong Kong. A critic of Western representative democracy, his particular research interests include the history of the Cultural Revolution, sortition, the welfare state, and the comparative politics of East Asia.
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Santiago Schnell
#34599
Overall Influence
1971 - Present (55 years)
Santiago Schnell FRSB FRSC is a scientist and academic leader, currently serving as the William K. Warren Foundation Dean of the College of Science at the University of Notre Dame, as well as a professor in the Department of Biological Sciences, and Department of Applied and Computational Mathematics and Statistics.
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Buddy Roemer
#34600
Overall Influence
1943 - 2021 (78 years)
Charles Elson "Buddy" Roemer III was an American politician, investor, and banker who served as the 52nd governor of Louisiana from 1988 to 1992, and as a member of the United States House of Representatives from 1981 to 1988. In March 1991, while serving as governor, Roemer switched affiliation from the Democratic Party to the Republican Party.
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Kim Sook
#34601
Overall Influence
1975 - Present (51 years)
Kim Sook , is a South Korean comedian. The second woman to ever win the Grand Prize in Entertainment , Kim Sook is one of the most sought after female comediennes that has broken barriers and paved the way for female entertainers in South Korea. Debuting at the age of 19, her career has span for almost three decades. She is currently signed with IOK COMPANY, as her agency.
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Brian Stock
#34602
Overall Influence
1939 - Present (87 years)
Brian Stock is an American historian. He is a historian of modes of perception between the ancient world and the sixteenth century. He was Rouse Ball Student at Trinity College, Cambridge, and Senior Fellow at the Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, Toronto, before joining the graduate faculty of the University of Toronto, where he taught history and literature until 2007. He is a Canadian and French citizen.
Go to Profile#34591
Alan F. Westin
#34603
Overall Influence
1929 - 2013 (84 years)
Alan Furman Westin was a Professor of Public Law & Government Emeritus, Columbia University, former publisher of Privacy & American Business, and former President of the Center for Social & Legal Research.
Go to Profile#34592
Jolanta Antas
#34604
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (72 years)
Jolanta Antas is a Polish professor of linguistics at the Jagiellonian University of Kraków. Antas is the head of the Institute of Theory of Communication at the Faculty of Polish Language and Literature of the Jagiellonian University. She conducts research on pragmatic and semantic aspects of negation and lying. With a team of associates, she has drafted a ground-breaking scientific study called “The map of Polish expressions”.
Go to Profile#34593
Galen Cranz
#34605
Overall Influence
Galen Cranz is a Professor of the Graduate School, Architecture at the College of Environmental Design at the University of California, Berkeley, who studies the social and cultural bases of architectural and urban design. She is a certified teacher of the Alexander Technique, a kinesthetic educational system, who founded the new field "Body Conscious Design."
Go to Profile#34594
Robert Evans
#34606
Overall Influence
1988 - Present (38 years)
Robert Evans is an American author, journalist, and podcast host who has reported on global conflicts and online extremism. A former editor at the humor website Cracked.com, Evans now writes for the investigative journalism outlet Bellingcat while working on several podcasts, including Behind the Bastards, Behind the Police, Behind the Insurrections, It Could Happen Here, The Women's War, and Worst Year Ever. In 2021 he published his first novel, After The Revolution, in a serialized podcast.
Go to Profile#34595
Lawrence Joseph
#34607
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (78 years)
Lawrence Joseph is an American poet, writer, essayist, critic, lawyer, and professor of law. Early life and education Lawrence Joseph was born in 1948 in Detroit, Michigan. Joseph's grandparents, Lebanese Maronite and Syrian Melkite Eastern Catholics, were among the first Arab Americans to emigrate to Detroit around 1910, where both Joseph's parents were born.
Go to Profile#34596
Charles Trenet
#34608
Overall Influence
1913 - 2001 (88 years)
Louis Charles Augustin Georges Trenet was a renowned French singer-songwriter who composed both the music and the lyrics to nearly 1,000 songs over a career that lasted more than 60 years. These songs include "Boum!" , "La Mer" and "Nationale 7" . Trenet is noted for his work with musicians Michel Emer and Léo Chauliac, with whom he recorded "Y'a d'la joie" for the first and "La Romance de Paris" and "Douce France" for the latter. He was awarded an Honorary Molière Award in 2000.
Go to Profile#34597
William Powers Jr.
#34609
Overall Influence
1946 - 2019 (73 years)
William Charles Powers Jr. was an American attorney, academic, and university administrator who served as the 28th president of the University of Texas at Austin, becoming the second-longest serving president in the university's history. He held the position from February 1, 2006, to July 2, 2015, when he was succeeded by Gregory L. Fenves. Before his death, Powers held the Hines H. Baker and Thelma Kelley Baker Chair at the University of Texas School of Law.
Go to Profile#34598
Marta Verginella
#34610
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (66 years)
Marta Verginella is a Slovenian historian from the Slovene minority in Italy in Trieste, notable as one of the most prominent contemporary Slovene historians. Together with Alenka Puhar, she is considered a pioneer in the history of family relations in the Slovene Lands.
Go to Profile#34599
James Tanton
#34611
Overall Influence
1966 - Present (60 years)
James Stuart Tanton is a mathematician and math educator. He is a winner of the Kidder Faculty Prize for his teaching at The St. Mark’s Math Institute, scholar at the Mathematical Association of America, author of over ten books on mathematics, curriculum, and education, and creator of videos on mathematics on YouTube. As of February 2020 his approximately 190 videos had earned over 800,000 views.
Go to Profile#34600
John Fage
#34612
Overall Influence
1921 - 2002 (81 years)
John Donnelly Fage was a British historian who was among the first academics to specialise in African history, especially of the pre-colonial period, in the United Kingdom and West Africa. He published a number of influential studies on West African history including Introduction to the History of West Africa . He subsequently co-founded the Journal of African History, the first specialist academic journal in the field, with Roland Oliver in 1960.
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