tarheel91 said:
Mr Khan said:
Yay! Someone else who knows that Columbus was really looking for Cathay, or Mongolia.
1. Jesus. No other individual is still so directly involved in people's lives, considering that about 1/3 of people on earth at least claim to be Christian.
2. Gutenberg. The foundation of the modern world is knowledge through literature, which we would have without him.
3. Edison. He created the demand for electricity with his introduction of consumer goods that used it (lightbulb), and the electrical delivery systems.
4. Mohammed. Same thing as Jesus, just with fewer people.
5. King John and the Chartists: they laid the foundation for constitutional government in England, which would become the foundation for the rule of law pretty much around the world.
6. Ghengis Khan. His empire brought together the great civilizations of the world at the time (East Asia, Middle East, Europe), and the exchange of information created much of the world, and his legacy changed the course of world history entirely.
7. Columbus. Because putting two continents on the map is kinda hard to replicate
8. John Smith. He created capitalism, which has endured as an economic system to this day
9. Marx. His ideas did kind of burn out, but still changed the world remarkably. The 20th century pretty much turned on his ideas.
10. Cardinal Richileu. At the end of the 30-years-war, he helped craft what is the modern notion of the sovereign state that endures to this day
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Gutenburg only invented the printing press in the west. The earliest printed book was found in China, a copy of the Diamond Sutra. It was printed in 868.
Choosing ten people is pretty difficult. Most of these lists are incredibly Western. Even if you only look at Western history, 10 is still pretty hard.
I'd definitely include Jesus. Newton would be there as the foundation of modern physics (and calculus). I'd probably include Martin Luther (where is he in y'all's lists!?), too. In terms of the East, I'd look at Confucius, Mao Zedong, and Laozi. I really don't know who I'd pick to fill the other six spots. We were tasked with picking the 25 most influential people in Western history since 1400 in my AP European History class last year, and that was difficult enough.
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To be fair, lists probably should be westerncentric... considering the general western dominance of the world.
The Karl Marx stuff I don't get though. Had Karl Marx so the world of today, chances are he'd of never written the Communist manifesto in the first place.
The stuff that goes on in the world today in capitalist countries is of the like he'd never expect to see. In such a world it's unlikely he'd think the strong steps he suggested there were worth going through on.
