This is the fifth installment of a series that will focus on Michael H. Hart's book The 100: A Ranking of the Most Influential Persons in History (Citadel Press). As I explained in my first installment, Hart has attempted to survey the whole of human history from early civilization through the late 20th century and identify the 100 individuals whose undertakings have most affected, for good or ill, the largest number of fellow humans. For each, the author provides a brief bio combined with an explanation of his or her historical influence.
I had hoped to publish this once a week; unfortunately, to quote John Lennon (and I'm not sure that he was the first to come up with this), "Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans." So, my publication schedule has been less regular than I'd have liked.
In short form, Hart's top 100 list (1992 revised edition), starting with the most influential, is: Muhammad; Newton; Jesus; Buddha; Confucius; St. Paul; Ts’ai Lun; Gutenberg; Columbus; Einstein; Pasteur; Galileo; Aristotle; Euclid; Moses; Darwin; Shih Huang Ti; Augustus Caesar; Copernicus; Lavoisier; Constantine; Watt; Faraday; Maxwell; Luther; Washington; Marx; Wright Brothers; Genghis Khan; Adam Smith; de Vere a/k/a Shakespeare; Dalton; Alexander; Napoleon; Edison; Leeuwenhoek; Morton; Marconi; Hitler; Plato; Cromwell; Bell; Fleming; Locke; Beethoven; Heisenberg; Daguerre; Bolivar; Descartes; Michelangelo; Pope Urban II; 'Umar ibn al-Khattab; Asoka; St. Augustine; Harvey; Rutherford; Calvin; Mendel; Planck; Lister; Otto; Pizarro; Cortes; Jefferson; Isabella I; Stalin; Julius Caesar; William the Conqueror; Freud; Jenner; Röntgen; Bach; Lao Tzu; Voltaire; Kepler; Fermi; Euler; Rousseau; Machiavelli; Malthus; Kennedy; Pincus; Mani; Lenin; Sui Wen Ti; da Gama; Cyrus; Peter the Great; Mao; Bacon; Ford; Mencius; Zoroaster; Elizabeth I; Gorbachev; Menes; Charlemagne; Homer; Justinian I; Mahariva.
My plan is to go through the list from top to bottom and, with each installment, provide bullet point summaries of Hart's biographical sketches, supplemented with synopses of Hart's subjective commentary. I welcome you to suggest other names that should be on Hart's list. Keep in mind, though, that any such suggestion necessarily implies that someone on the list should be dropped. If you can, please tell us which name or names you'd like to toss.
In the first four installments we covered Muhammad through Lavoisier. Here are the next five (I originally planned to cover 10 at a time, but that notion has proved too ambitious - I'm a slow writer) on Hart’s list of the most influential persons in history:
21. Constantine the Great c. 280 - 337
• born in town of Naissus, in what is now Serbia; his father was ruler of western portion of Roman Empire
• after his father’s death, he defeated rival generals to become emperor of the entire Roman Empire in 323
• made Byzantium his capital, renaming it Constantinople (now Istanbul)
• converted to Christianity and issued Edict of Milan, which legalized Christianity; however, was ruthless and cruel in his rule and in his personal affairs
• as emperor, took steps to encourage growth of Christianity, which soon became the predominant religion of the world’s largest empire
• initiated official persecutions of Jews
• convoked the Council of Nicaea in 325, the first general council of the Catholic Church
Constantine played a key role in transforming Christianity from a persecuted sect into Europe’s dominant religion.
22. James Watt 1736 - 1819
• born in Scotland and proved to possess great inventive talent
• in 1764, studied and repaired an early version of the steam engine
• in 1769, patented the addition of a separate condensing chamber
• in 1781, devised a method for converting the engine's reciprocal motion into rotary motion; in 1782, invented the double-acting engine
• invented a centrifugal governor, a pressure gauge, and other improvements
• Watt’s improvements increased the efficiency of the steam engine by a factor of four or more, resulting in a device useful for many industrial applications
• in partnership with Matthew Boulton, manufactured and sold numerous steam engines, achieving considerable wealth
Watt’s inventions sparked the Industrial Revolution, which allowed the energy of fossil fuel to supplant human and animal muscle power. The development of the steamship and the steam locomotive transformed human transportation.
23. Michael Faraday 1791 - 1867
• came from a poor family and was largely self-educated, reading extensively
• obtained a position as assistant to famed British scientist Sir Humphry Davy and demonstrated raw talent as an experimental physicist
• studying electricity, built the first primitive electric motor
• discovered principle of electromagnetic induction – "Faraday’s law" – and built the first electric dynamo
• introduced into physics the concepts of electric and magnetic lines of force
• discovered interaction between light and magnetism
• made important contributions to electrochemistry and general chemistry
Modern technology and culture are extremely dependent upon applications of electric power. Many researchers made important contributions to our understanding of electricity, but Faraday and James Clerk Maxwell (see No. 24) tower above the rest.
24. James Clerk Maxwell 1831-1879
• born in Edinburgh, Scotland and was extremely precocious
• spent most of his life as a college physics professor
• formulated a set of four equations that express the basic laws of electricity and magnetism, thus transforming a confusing mass of experimental observations into a comprehensive theory
• deduced that light consists of electromagnetic waves and established that the principles of optics are consistent with the laws of electromagnetism
• discovered the formula that describes, for a given temperature, what fraction of the molecules of a given gas will move at a specified velocity - "the Maxwell distribution"
• made important contributions to astronomy and thermodynamics
• died of cancer at age 48
Maxwell is generally considered to be the greatest theoretical physicist in the whole interval between Newton and Einstein.
25. Martin Luther 1483 - 1546
• born in Germany; initially studied law, then became an Augustinian monk
• in 1510, traveled to Rome and was shocked by worldly lifestyles of church leaders
• in 1512, received degree of Doctor of Theology and soon joined faculty of University of Wittenberg
• in 1517, posted his Ninety-Five Theses on the door of the church at Wittenberg, denouncing moral laxity of church leaders and practice of selling indulgences
• soon thereafter, also denied authority of Pope and of Church councils
• was denounced by the Church as a heretic; however, his views were supported by many German princes and common people
• became a prolific author and translated the Bible into German
• taught that eternal salvation requires faith and the grace of God, and cannot be attained through good works; also, that the Church was not a necessary mediator between the individual and God
• denied the existence of purgatory and opposed celibacy of the clergy
• was anti-Semitic and often intolerant of dissent
• married a former nun; they had six children together
Although not the first Protestant thinker, Luther is considered chiefly responsible for the Reformation and the appearance of numerous Protestant sects, which sparked religious warfare in Europe but also inspired greater acceptance of freedom of religion.
Note: I'm putting this up Saturday night but will probably respond to most comments tomorrow.