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
#37651
George G. Lorentz
#37663
Overall Influence
1910 - 2006 (96 years)
George Gunter Lorentz was a Russian-American mathematician. Biography Lorentz was born in St. Petersburg. His father, Rudolf Fedorovich Lorentz, was a German railway engineer and his mother Milena Nikolayevna Chegodayev came from the Russian nobility. Since his father refused in 1906 to suppress a strike, he was no longer allowed to work on the state railway, so he worked for private railway companies in the Caucasus. The family survived the revolutionary turmoil and civil war near Sochi and then moved to Tbilisi, where he began studying at the Technical University in 1926. From 1928 he studi...
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Paul Martin Lester
#37664
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (73 years)
Paul Martin Lester was an American professor of communications, author, and photojournalist. He was Clinical Professor at the School of Arts, Technology, and Emerging Communication and a Professor Emeritus from California State University, Fullerton.
Go to Profile#37653
Michael Horodniceanu
#37665
Overall Influence
1944 - 2023 (79 years)
Michael Horodniceanu was a Romanian-born American civil engineer who served as traffic commissioner of New York City. He was also the president of MTA Capital Construction. Early life and education Horodniceanu was born in Bucharest, Romania, and emigrated to Israel at age 16. He served in the military there and graduated from Technion – Israel Institute of Technology.
Go to Profile#37654
Jonas Hafström
#37666
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (78 years)
Sven Jonas Gerhardsson Hafström is a Swedish diplomat who was Sweden's Ambassador to the United States from 2007 to 2013. Biography Jonas Hafström was born in Stockholm. He earned a LL.B. from Lund University in 1974. In 1975 he was also elected chairman of the Student Body at Lund University. From 1976 to 1979 he served as a District Clerk at the District Court in Nyköping, Sweden. In 1979 he was employed at the Swedish Ministry for Foreign Affairs in Stockholm and from 1979 to 1981 he served as press secretary to then Minister for Justice Håkan Winberg. From 1982 to 1984 he was First Secret...
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Lucie Cheng
#37667
Overall Influence
1939 - 2010 (71 years)
Lucie Cheng was a sociologist known for her work in Asian American studies, as well as being the first permanent director of the Asian American Studies Center, UCLA. She was also one of the first American academics to forge links with mainland Chinese academic institutions after the formalisation of Sino-US relations.
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Shellback
#37668
Overall Influence
1985 - Present (41 years)
Karl Johan Schuster , known professionally as Shellback, is a Swedish record producer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. Shellback was listed as the No. 1 producer of 2012 on Billboard magazine's year end chart, and he also topped the list of their "Top 10 Songwriters Airplay Chart" the same year; he has won four Grammy Awards.
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Serguei Barannikov
#37669
Overall Influence
1972 - Present (54 years)
Serguei Barannikov is a mathematician, known for his works in algebraic topology, algebraic geometry and mathematical physics. Biography Barannikov graduated with honors from Moscow State University in 1994.
Go to Profile#37658
René Auberjonois
#37670
Overall Influence
1940 - 2019 (79 years)
René Murat Auberjonois was an American actor and director. He first achieved fame as a stage actor, winning the Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Musical in 1970 for his portrayal of Sebastian Baye opposite Katharine Hepburn in the André Previn-Alan Jay Lerner musical Coco. He went on to earn three more Tony nominations for performances in Neil Simon's The Good Doctor , Roger Miller's Big River , and Cy Coleman's City of Angels ; he won a Drama Desk Award for Big River.
Go to Profile#37659
Ferdinand von Prondzynski
#37671
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (72 years)
Ferdinand von Prondzynski is a German-born Irish citizen who was the former university leader in Ireland and Scotland, a lawyer and legal academic, a high-profile public commentator, and latterly a member of the clergy of the Scottish Episcopal Church . Formerly the Principal and Vice-Chancellor of Robert Gordon University in Aberdeen, Scotland, he previously served as the second President of Dublin City University in Ireland , and before that as a professor and dean at the University of Hull, and lecturer and Fellow at Trinity College Dublin.
Go to Profile#37660
Li Xueqin
#37672
Overall Influence
1933 - 2019 (86 years)
Li Xueqin was a Chinese historian, archaeologist, and palaeographer. He served as Director of the Institute of History of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Professor of the Institute of Sinology of Tsinghua University, Chairman of the Pre-Qin History Association of China, and participated in the Xia–Shang–Zhou Chronology Project.
Go to Profile#37661
Rick Fox
#37673
Overall Influence
1969 - Present (57 years)
Ulrich Alexander Fox is a Canadian actor and former basketball player. He played in the National Basketball Association for the Boston Celtics and Los Angeles Lakers, and played college basketball for the North Carolina Tar Heels. He was the owner of the eSports franchise Echo Fox until his departure from the franchise in October 2019.
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Wade Nobles
#37674
Overall Influence
Wade W. Nobles is a professor emeritus in the Department of Africana Studies at San Francisco State University and notable pioneer of the African-American psychology movement. Biography Nobles' grandparents were born into American slavery. His parents, Annie Mae Cotton and John Nobles, chose the name Wade, meaning "one who is able to tread through difficult matter like mud, snow or ignorance." Nobles earned his PhD in psychology from Stanford University. He is married to Vera Lynn Winmilawe Nokwanda DeMoultrie , with whom Nobles has five children and 11 grandchildren. Nobles belongs to the Ifá...
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Roman Bezrukavnikov
#37675
Overall Influence
1973 - Present (53 years)
Roman Bezrukavnikov is an American mathematician born in Moscow. He is a mathematics professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the chief research fellow at the HSE International Laboratory of Representation Theory and Mathematical Physics who specializes in representation theory and algebraic geometry.
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Chloë Sevigny
#37676
Overall Influence
1974 - Present (52 years)
Chloë Stevens Sevigny is an American actress, model and fashion designer. Known for her work in independent films, often appearing in controversial or experimental features, Sevigny is the recipient of several accolades, including a Golden Globe Award, a Satellite Award, an Independent Spirit Award, as well as nominations for an Academy Award and three Screen Actors Guild Awards. She also has a career in fashion design concurrent with her acting work. Over the years, her alternative fashion sense has earned her a reputation as a "style icon".
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Eugene Lee
#37677
Overall Influence
1939 - 2023 (84 years)
Eugene Edward Lee was an American set designer who worked in film, theater, and television. He was the production designer for Saturday Night Live from the show's premiere in 1975 until his death, with the exception of seasons 6-10 . Lee became resident designer at Trinity Repertory Company in Providence, Rhode Island, in 1967.
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Hermann Flohn
#37678
Overall Influence
1912 - 1997 (85 years)
Hermann Flohn was a climatologist. Flohn was professor at the University of Bonn and head of the department at the Institute of Meteorology of Bonn University. He produced about 360 publications. Flohn was member in numerous scientific societies such as the Bavarian Academy, the Academy of Sciences Leopoldina, the New York Academy of Sciences, and the Royal Academy of Belgium.
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Peter R. Neumann
#37679
Overall Influence
1974 - Present (52 years)
Peter R. Neumann is a German journalist and academic who frequently appears on radio and television as an expert on terrorism and political violence. He is the Founding Director of the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation and Political Violence as well as Professor of Security Studies at the War Studies Department of King's College London.
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Michael R. Simonson
#37680
Overall Influence
1945 - Present (81 years)
Michael R. Simonson is an American academic who is professor of Instructional Technology & Distance Education at Nova Southeastern University, Editor of the Quarterly Review of Distance Education and Distance Learning Journal, and author of 4 texts in the area of ITDE.
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Louis J. Lanzerotti
#37681
Overall Influence
1938 - Present (88 years)
Louis John Lanzerotti is an American physicist. He is a Distinguished Research Professor of physics in the Center for Solar-Terrestrial Research at New Jersey Institute of Technology in Newark, New Jersey.
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Valentin Fabrikant
#37682
Overall Influence
1907 - 1991 (84 years)
Valentin Aleksandrovich Fabrikant was a Soviet scientist in the field of electromagnetic radiation. He is a laureate of the Stalin Prize . Biography Fabrikant was born in 1907 in Moscow. In 1930 he graduated from the Physics and Mathematics Department of Moscow University. After graduation, he moved to work at the Moscow Power Engineering Institute. In 1932, Fabrikant began working on the issue of gas-discharge optics. In 1938 he proposed a method of direct experimental proof of the existence of stimulated emission.
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Saleh Uddin
#37683
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (72 years)
Mohammad Saleh Uddin, "Badal" is a Bangladeshi architect, professor, author and artist. His books, published by McGraw-Hill and John Wiley & Sons are widely used as graphical communication and design textbooks internationally. Some have been translated from English into Spanish and into Chinese. He is also the main architect of the Gulshan Club scheduled to be built in Gulshan, Dhaka in 2011, having won the international open design competition for it.
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Paul Levitz
#37684
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (70 years)
Paul Levitz is an American comic book writer, editor and executive. The president of DC Comics from 2002 to 2009, he worked for the company for over 35 years in a wide variety of roles. Along with publisher Jenette Kahn and managing editor Dick Giordano, Levitz was responsible for hiring such writers as Marv Wolfman and Alan Moore, artists such as George Pérez, Keith Giffen, and John Byrne, and editor Karen Berger, who contributed to the 1980s revitalization of the company's line of comic book heroes.
Go to Profile#37673
Ye Peijian
#37685
Overall Influence
1945 - Present (81 years)
Ye Peijian is a Chinese aerospace engineer. He is the Chief Commander and Chief Designer of the Chinese Lunar Exploration Program. Early life and education Ye was born in Huzhuang Village, Taixing, Jiangsu, China, in January 1945. In 1962, he graduated from Huzhou Middle School in Huzhou, Zhejiang province.
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Ani DiFranco
#37686
Overall Influence
1970 - Present (56 years)
Angela Maria "Ani" DiFranco is an American-Canadian singer-songwriter. She has released more than 20 albums. DiFranco's music has been classified as folk rock and alternative rock, although it has additional influences from punk, funk, hip hop and jazz. She has released all her albums on her own record label, Righteous Babe.
Go to Profile#37675
Taio Cruz
#37687
Overall Influence
1980 - Present (46 years)
Jacob Taio Cruz , better known professionally as Taio Cruz , is an English singer, songwriter and record producer from London, currently based in Los Angeles. In 2008, he released his debut album Departure, which he wrote, arranged and produced. The album achieved certified gold status in the United Kingdom and earned him a Music of Black Origin Awards nomination.
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István Hont
#37688
Overall Influence
1947 - 2013 (66 years)
István Hont was a Hungarian-born British historian of economics and political thought, University Reader in the History of Political Thought at the University of Cambridge. Hont was supervised as a doctoral student at Oxford by Hugh Trevor Roper. He was elected a Fellow of King's College, Cambridge in 1978. From 1978 to 1984 he directed a King's College Research Centre project 'Political Economy and Society 1750–1850' with Michael Ignatieff, out of which grew their co-edited volume Wealth and Virtue. Hont was invited to be a professor in political thought at Columbia University, and was a visiting fellow at the Collegium Budapest in 1993–4., but remained at Cambridge until his death.
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Beppe Severgnini
#37689
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (70 years)
Giuseppe "Beppe" Severgnini is an Italian journalist, essayist and columnist. Biography Born in Crema, Severgnini graduated in law at the University of Pavia. His father was a public notary. His career in journalism began when, aged 24, he joined the Milan daily newspaper Il Giornale, headed by Italian journalist Indro Montanelli; he soon distinguished himself as a writer and became the paper's London correspondent.
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William H. Simon
#37690
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (79 years)
William H. Simon is an American legal scholar working as the Arthur Levitt Professor of Law and Everett B. Birch Professor in Professional Responsibility of Law at Columbia Law School. Education Simon earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Princeton University in 1969 and a Juris Doctor from Harvard Law School in 1974.
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Karolina Ekholm
#37691
Overall Influence
1964 - Present (62 years)
Karolina Ekholm is a Swedish economist and public official. Education and research Ekholm, obtained a PhD in 1995 from the Department of Economics at Lund University. As a researcher she has focused mainly on the effects of globalisation. Since 1 April 2010 she is also Professor at Stockholm University.
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Antonia Ferrín Moreiras
#37692
Overall Influence
1914 - 2009 (95 years)
Antonia Ferrín Moreiras was a mathematician, professor and the first female Galician astronomer. Her main contributions to astronomy were works on stellar occultations by the moon, measures of double stars and astrometric measurements, as well as the determination of the passage of stars through two verticals. She accomplished all of this while she was working at the Observatory of the University of Santiago de Compostela .
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Jon Butler
#37693
Overall Influence
1940 - Present (86 years)
Jon Butler is a historian and Howard R. Lamar Professor Emeritus of American Studies, History, and Religious Studies at Yale University. He earned his bachelor's and doctoral degrees from the University of Minnesota, and is known for his research on the role of religion in early American history. At Yale, he served as chair of the American Studies Program from 1988 to 1993, the director of the Division of the Humanities from 1997 to 1999, and chair of the Department of History from 1999 to 2004. He was dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences from 2004 to 2010, and also served as inte...
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Rita Kothari
#37694
Overall Influence
1969 - Present (57 years)
Rita Kothari is a Gujarati and English language author and translator from Gujarat, India. In an attempt to preserve her memories and her identity as a member of the Sindhi people, Kothari wrote several books on partition and its effects on people. She has translated several Gujarati works into English.
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Elmar Seebold
#37695
Overall Influence
1934 - Present (92 years)
Elmar Seebold is a German philologist who specializes in Germanic philology. From 1971 to 1983, Seebold was Professor of Germanic philology at the University of Fribourg. He then transferred to the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich. Seebold retired from the university in 1999. He is the editor of the Etymological Dictionary of the German Language.
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Nicholas Griffin
#37696
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (79 years)
Nicholas John Griffin is a retired Canadian-based philosopher. He was Director of the Bertrand Russell Centre at McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, where he held a Canada Research Chair in Philosophy.
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Timothy Browning
#37697
Overall Influence
1976 - Present (50 years)
Timothy Browning is a mathematician working in number theory, examining the interface of analytic number theory and Diophantine geometry. Browning is currently a Professor of number theory at the Institute of Science and Technology Austria in Klosterneuburg, Austria.
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Jack Brabham
#37698
Overall Influence
1926 - 2014 (88 years)
Sir John Arthur Brabham was an Australian racing driver who was Formula One World Champion in , , and . He was a founder of the Brabham racing team and race car constructor that bore his name. Brabham was a Royal Australian Air Force flight mechanic and ran a small engineering workshop before he started racing midget cars in 1948. His successes with midgets in Australian and New Zealand road racing events led to his going to Britain to further his racing career. There he became part of the Cooper Car Company's racing team, building as well as racing cars. He contributed to the design of the ...
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Maria Yellow Horse Brave Heart
#37699
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (73 years)
Maria Yellow Horse Brave Heart is a Native American social worker, associate professor and mental health expert. She is best known for developing a model of historical trauma for the Lakota people, which would eventually be expanded to encompass indigenous populations the world over. She is Hunkpapa/Oglala Lakota.
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Shakib Al Hasan
#37700
Overall Influence
1987 - Present (39 years)
Khondaker Sakib Al-Hassan is a Bangladeshi cricketer and current captain of the Bangladesh national cricket team in all formats. He is known for his aggressive left-handed batting style in the middle order and controlled slow left-arm orthodox bowling. He is widely regarded as the greatest Bangladeshi cricketer and one of the greatest all rounder of all time .
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Malky Mackay
#37701
Overall Influence
1972 - Present (54 years)
Malcolm George Mackay is a Scottish professional football coach and former player, who most recently managed Scottish Premiership club Ross County. Mackay, who played as a defender, began his playing career in Scottish football with Queen's Park and Celtic. He joined English side Norwich City in 1998, remaining there for six years. Between 2004 and 2006, he achieved consecutive promotions to the Premier League with Norwich, West Ham United and finally Watford. Mackay won five caps for Scotland towards the end of his playing career.
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Bubba Watson
#37702
Overall Influence
1978 - Present (48 years)
Gerry Lester "Bubba" Watson Jr. is an American professional golfer. He has two major championships, with victories at the Masters Tournament in 2012 and 2014, and a total 12 PGA Tour wins. In February 2015, Watson reached a career-high 2nd place in the Official World Golf Ranking. Watson plays in the LIV Golf League since 2022.
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Jim Mattis
#37703
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
James Norman Mattis is an American military veteran who served as the 26th United States secretary of defense from 2017 to 2019. A former Marine Corps four-star general, he commanded forces in the Persian Gulf War, the War in Afghanistan, and the Iraq War.
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Alice Weaver Flaherty
#37704
Overall Influence
Alice Weaver Flaherty is an American neurologist. She is a researcher, physician, educator, and author of the 2004 book The Midnight Disease: The Drive to Write, Writer's Block, and the Creative Brain, about the neural basis of creativity.
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Mai Chen
#37705
Overall Influence
1964 - Present (62 years)
Mai Chen is a New Zealand and Harvard educated lawyer with a professional and specialist focus in constitutional and administrative law, Waitangi tribunal and courts, human rights, white collar fraud and regulatory defence, judicial review, regulatory issues, education law, and public policy and law reform. Chen is a barrister and holds an office in the Public Law Toolbox Chambers. She is an adjunct professor at the University of Auckland School of Law. Having served previously in the university's Business School. Chen is also the Chair of New Zealand Asian Leaders, SUPERdiverse WOMEN and the Superdiversity Institute for Law, Policy and Business.
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Edgar Z. Friedenberg
#37706
Overall Influence
1921 - 2000 (79 years)
Edgar Zodaig Friedenberg was an American scholar of education and gender studies best known for The Vanishing Adolescent and Coming of Age in America . The latter was a finalist for the 1966 National Book Award for Nonfiction.
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John Day
#37707
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (79 years)
John D. Day is an electrical engineer, an Internet pioneer, and a historian. He has been involved in the development of the communication protocols of Internet and its predecessor ARPANET since the 1970s, and he was also active in the design of the OSI reference model. He has contributed in the research and development of network management systems, distributed databases, supercomputing, and operating systems.
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Claudia Maraston
#37708
Overall Influence
Claudia Maraston is a Professor of Astrophysics at the University of Portsmouth. She designs models for the calculation of spectro-photometric evolution of stellar populations. She is the winner of the 2018 Royal Astronomical Society Eddington Medal.
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Emily Riehl
#37709
Overall Influence
1980 - Present (46 years)
Emily Riehl is an American mathematician who has contributed to higher category theory and homotopy theory. Much of her work, including her PhD thesis, concerns model structures and more recently the foundations of infinity-categories. She is the author of two textbooks and serves on the editorial boards of three journals.
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Martin Thomas
#37710
Overall Influence
1964 - Present (62 years)
Professor Martin Thomas is a British historian. Thomas did both his undergraduate and doctoral studies at Oxford University, completing his D.Phil. in 1991. He joined the history department at the University of the West of England, Bristol, in 1992 before leaving to take up a post at the History Department of Exeter University in 2003. He is the director of the Centre for the Study of War, State and Society.
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Inés Mónica Weinberg de Roca
#37711
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (78 years)
Justice Inés Mónica Weinberg de Roca is an Argentine Judge of the Supreme Court of city of Buenos Aires and a Judge of the United Nations Appeals Tribunal in New York City. She was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina on December 16, 1948.
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John Higham
#37712
Overall Influence
1920 - 2003 (83 years)
John William Higham was an American historian, scholar of American culture, historiography and ethnicity. In the 1950s he was a prominent critic of Consensus history. Historian Dorothy Ross says, "The multi-ethnic environment of his early life in Queens, the wartime optimism, and his immersion in Progressive history, with its fundamental faith in American democracy, gave him a vision of an egalitarian, cosmopolitan, American nationalism in which he never lost faith."
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