I had some doubts about this set of historical rankings at Time Ideas, "
Who's Biggest? The 100 Most Significant Figures in History," particularly after I saw George W. Bush was ranked 36--ahead of
Winston Churchill and
Genghis Khan. I
tweeted my skepticism to my friend Ryan Sager, who works at Time Ideas, and he tweeted back that G.W.B. was overweighted because he was president "
when most of Wikipedia was written," data from that site being a factor in the algorithms used for the rankings.
The article does not give listings beyond the top 100, but the same authors, Steven Skiena and Charles B. Ward, have a
website of such rankings, with a search function and lots of lists and categories. I see the top people in history list there is a bit different. I also looked up
DeWitt Clinton, who in historical memory has had his ups and downs. (Interestingly, his Wikipedia mentions have gone up lately.)
Here's Skiena and Ward's book:
Who's Bigger?: Where Historical Figures Really Rank.
