Who influenced history the most

Ian McDonald

WE ALL enjoy a heated discussion among friends over who is or was the greatest - cricketer, boxer, writer, commander, lawyer, scientist, actor, orator, etc. Such discussions, of course, never have a conclusion: greatness is indefinable and each person's judgement of what greatness involves must be purely subjective.

Discussing lists of the best in this, that, or the other field has given a great deal of harmless enjoyment to mankind. Futile though such discussions are, they generate wonderful hours of animated conversational cut and thrust and some of our pleasantest, most carefree hours have been spent in this way.

Anyone who enjoys an argument which needs no resolution should read a book which is the last word in the making of lists. The book is The 100: Ranking the Most Influential People in History by Michael Hart published some years ago. Get it so that you can quarrel with it. Here are some fascinating, contentious and eccentric examples of its choices. For instance, you might ask who on earth is Edward de Vere at number 31? Well, he turns out to be better known as William Shakespeare, a name which Michael Hart thinks is a pseudonym for the real man.

To my disgust, literary people hardly figure at all in the list. There are only Edward de Vere and Homer who squeezes in at 98 after Charlemagne at 97. This is disgraceful. I would have filled the list with poets since they are the best guardians of language and language is the greatest creation of mankind. But then, not only are there just two poets, there are absolutely no artists or composers. The only slight consolation is that Edward de Vere does figure above Hilter (39) and Stalin (66).

Is it not appalling, by the way, that men so evil to the marrow as Hitler and Stalin should figure in the list at all. Sadly, however, the stone-cold eye of history views good and evil quite impartially and, for instance, blood-stained warriors are more likely than peace-makers to change the world forever.

Women may feel aggrieved since the list is almost exclusively male - Isabella of Spain is highest ranked among the few women at 65. But then I suppose women can easily shrug this off. "Wait until you see the score after the next thousand years!"

The top ten are marvellously arguable. Let me give the count-down to the topmost. At number 10 is Albert Einstein - I would have thought he would have been nearer the lead - and at number 9 is Columbus - views will differ, to say the least, whether his influence was for good or evil. Then at numbers 8 and 7 are Johann Gutenberg and T'Sai Lun. Who was T'Sai Lun? He was the man who, in the second century, invented paper. He boiled bamboo and rolled the pulp into thin sheets. I certainly agree with his high placement. He takes precedence over Gutenberg, inventor of movable print, on the grounds that print would not have been worth inventing without paper.

T'Sai Lun, inventor of paper - I learned about a new hero. It is interesting to note that the paper monopoly bequeathed by T'Sai Lun enabled China to achieve a very high level of civilisation for many centuries. Europe's belated manufacture of paper (replacing very expensive vellum and parchment), couples with Gutenberg's invention, accelerated Western literacy whereupon China, stuck with block printing, fell behind. Which all goes to show what and who are really important in history.

To tell the truth, any true list of the most influential people in mankind's story would have to include Anonymous appearing many times. Who, for instance, discovered the usefulness of fire? And who first dug holes through two round rocks and put a stick between and wheeled them? Who sang the first song? Who scratched the first outline on rock-face of animal or human form and even thought to stain it with berry juice? Who first thought of binding a sharp stone with tree vines to the end of a long, straight branch, never thinking it would one day become a missile aimed by laser beam? And who looked up at the stars and prayed the first prayer?

The leading six in this list are, except for one, the greatest teachers the world has ever known. The exception is probably history's supreme genius though he believed in alchemy and seems to have lived much of his life on the edge of madness. So here are the six top men. Number 6 is Saint Paul, number 5 is Confucius, number 4 is Buddha, number 3 is Jesus Christ, number 2 is Isaac Newton. And number 1 in the list, most influential of all it is strongly argued, is ... the prophet Muhammad.

At the end, Montaigne's famous aphorism is recalled: "We are more solicitous that men speak of us at all than of how they speak." Some of the people in this top 100 are unspeakably evil though undoubtedly influential. But an encouraging number honour Rabindranauth Tagore's beatitude: "Blessed is he whose fame does not outshine his truth."

Mostly, in this list anyway, those who have influenced history are people whose truths have outshone even their fame. But whether that is overall a correct assessment of history is, of course, a question quite sufficient to start another of those marathon discussions. Break out another bottle of 10-year-old and prepare the pot of curried chicken!

Ian McDonald is a regular contributor who lives and works in Georgetown, Guyana.

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