The world's most underrated historical figure

[Loren Booda]

Who do you believe to be the most unappreciated person in recorded history, or history overall?

 

[Bladibla]

I would personally say Ludwig Boltzmann.

Others: John Field (Irish composer)

Or do you mean this kind of stuff..?

 

[fourier jr]

david hilbert

 

[Berislav]

Imo, in the recorded history of science it's probably Hilbert or maybe Gauss.

In overall history it's the guy that planted Newton's apple tree.

 

[hypatia]

George M. Schroder

 

[Bladibla]

How about Hamilton? The latter part of his life was spent as a alcoholic... too bad for a man of his capabilities.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Either the person who invented toilet paper, Sonny Bono, or the first person to conceive of addition as a procedure that uses a symbol; not just as strikes in the dirt or scratches on the wall.

 

[Quarkycharm]

In overall history it's the guy that planted Newton's apple tree.

True!

At the time Darwin was developing his ideas about evolution another biologist called, Alfred Wallace was having the same thoughts and was developing the same theories. I'm not saying Wallace is the world's most unappreciated figure, but Darwin apparently got all the credit.

 

[fourier jr]

how about:
-- the caveman who drew the first rectangle, starting the symbolic revolution
-- thales & pythagoras, who made the first mathematical proofs; the way math is done hasn't changed since their time
-- julius caesar, the ralph nader of his day
-- kepler, one of the giants whose shoulders Newton stood on
-- euclid, whose elements has been published more than any other book in history except the bible
-- zheng he, chinese explorer

 

[faust9]

Hammurabi (argh! I have to add some stuff becuase my message was too short). Gotta love the man who brought us this crazy thing called the law. Well, to be slightly more correct he enumerated his judgements (first written law code) and sent out scribes to read his codes to the people; moreover, he erected pillars with his judgements inscribed...

 

[juvenal]

Forrest Gump

 

[loseyourname]

Guttenberg. Not that he is unmentioned; he does get credit, but not nearly enough. I don't know that anyone man has ever affected the course of history quite as much as he.

 

[cragwolf]

George C. Marshall.

 

[Janitor]

Michael Nesmith

 

[Smurf]

Me. I've yet to find a single history book that mentions my full name. (addenda to allow me to post, carry on)

 

[hypnagogue]

Guttenberg.

That's Gutenberg, with one T, unless you mean Steve Guttenberg, the actor. Not to be anal, but I did a quick wiki search to verify you were talking about who I thought you were talking about, and ran into some momentary confusion.

 

[Chronos]

Leonardo DaVinci, the quintessential renaissance man. Not that he was obscure, but his influence was deep and broad - both in science and art. He sends my WOW meter off the chart.

 

[TheStatutoryApe]

Zeno. Hehehe...

 

[matthyaouw]

I'm going to be pedantic (as usual) and say that the most underrated person will most likely be overlooked and not get a mention here.

 

[meteor]

Loren Booda

 

[Loren Booda]

 

[Dayle Record]

Rachel Carson

 

[fourier jr]

danny gatton
paul dirac

 

[arildno]

-- julius caesar, the ralph nader of his day

Is ralph nader the most ruthless mafia boss of our time?
Or
Was julius caesar obsessed about environmental issues?
Please explain..

 

[PerennialII]

Pythagoras ... who started all this.

 

[Moonbear]

I'm thinking it's got to be the parents of one of those famous folks. Can you imagine being Einstein's mom? "How many times do I have to tell you to comb your hair?!" Or what about Newton's mom? "Didn't I tell you not to sit around under that tree all day?"

 

[loseyourname]

Rachel Carson

I didn't even realize she was dead. Jeez. I doubt she'll ultimately make much an impact, myself. People still and will continue to poison themselves with pesticides.

 

[loseyourname]

That's Gutenberg, with one T, unless you mean Steve Guttenberg, the actor. Not to be anal, but I did a quick wiki search to verify you were talking about who I thought you were talking about, and ran into some momentary confusion.

Steve Guttenberg is definitely not who I was talking about, although he seemed to be significant to the Stonecutters on The Simpsons.

 

[stoned]

Einstein, we need more of him moremoremore

 

[loseyourname]

Yeah, Einstein's underrated. You never hear that name mentioned.

 

[stoned]

for real?; i think Poincare and Lorenz are asolutelly unerrated.they came up long before Einstein with principle of relativity,but that is just me.

 

[loseyourname]

for real?; i think Poincare and Lorenz are asolutelly unerrated.they came up long before Einstein with principle of relativity,but that is just me.

I was being sarcastic, my point being that everyone is talking about Einstein all the time. Calling Einstein underrated is like calling Muhammad Ali underrated. When you're considered by many to be the greatest of all time, that isn't underrating.

 

[fourier jr]

Is ralph nader the most ruthless mafia boss of our time?
Or
Was julius caesar obsessed about environmental issues?
Please explain..

maybe robin hood would be a more accurate name for caesar. not that he's my hero (after all he was still a member of the ruling class) but he made a pretty good attempt to redistribute the wealth in rome, gave land away to peasants, etc. the guy who killed him was a ruthless moneylender, who lent at ~45% interest. it's not what I say, it's all in michael parenti's "the assassination of julius caesar: a people's history of ancient rome", nominated for a non-fiction pulitzer in 2003.

here's the description from parenti's site:
Most historians, both ancient and modern, have viewed the Late Republic of Rome through the eyes of its rich nobility. They regard Roman commoners as a parasitic mob, a rabble interested only in bread and circuses. They cast Caesar, who took up the popular cause, as a despot and demagogue, and treat his murder as the outcome of a personal feud or constitutional struggle, devoid of social content. In The Assassination of Julius Caesar, the distinguished author Michael Parenti subjects these assertions of "gentlemen historians" to a bracing critique, and presents us with a compelling story of popular resistance against entrenched power and wealth. Parenti shows that Caesar was only the last in a line of reformers, dating back across the better part of a century, who were murdered by opulent conservatives. Caesar's assassination set in motion a protracted civil war, the demise of a five-hundred-year Republic, and the emergence of an absolutist rule that would prevail over Western Europe for centuries to come.

Parenti reconstructs the social and political context of Caesar's murder, offering fascinating details about Roman society. In these pages we encounter money-driven elections, the struggle for economic democracy, the use of religion as an instrument of social control, the sexual abuse of slaves, and the political use of homophobic attacks. Here is a story of empire and corruption, patriarchs and subordinated women, self-enriching capitalists and plundered provinces, slumlords and urban rioters, death squads and political witchhunts.

The Assassination of Julius Caesar offers a compelling new perspective on an ancient era, one that contains many intriguing parallels to our own times.

http://www.michaelparenti.org/Caesar.html


& from publisher's weekly:
Why did a group of Roman senators gather near Pompey's theater on March 15, 44 B.C., to kill Julius Caesar? Was it their fear of Caesar's tyrannical power? Or were these aristocratic senators worried that Caesar's land reforms and leanings toward democracy would upset their own control over the Roman Republic? Parenti (History as Mystery, etc.) narrates a provocative history of the late republic in Rome (100-33 B.C.) to demonstrate that Caesar's death was the culmination of growing class conflict, economic disparity and political corruption. He reconstructs the history of these crucial years from the perspective of the Roman people, the masses of slaves, plebs and poor farmers who possessed no political power. Roughly 99% of the state's wealth was controlled by 1% of the population, according to Parenti. By the 60s B.C., the poor populace had begun to find spokesmen among such leaders as the tribunes Tiberius Gracchus and his younger brother, Gaius. Although the Gracchi attempted to introduce various reforms, they were eventually murdered, and the reform movements withered. Julius Caesar, says Parenti, took up where they left off, introducing laws to improve the condition of the poor, redistributing land and reducing unemployment. As Parenti points out, such efforts threatened the landed aristocracy's power in the Senate and resulted in Caesar's assassination. Parenti's method of telling history from the "bottom up" will be controversial, but he recreates the struggles of the late republic with such scintillating storytelling and deeply examined historical insight that his book provides an important alternative to the usual views of Caesar and the Roman Empire.

 

[aeroegnr]

Calvin Coolidge

If he had run for president for a second term the 20th century would have been vastly different, in a better way.

 

[arildno]

fourier jr:
Thank you for your reference.
However, parenti's view is not particularly new, nor is it particularly well founded. It is certainly not true that the "populace" in Rome was a "mere rabble", but that was really the 19th century historian's view, not the 20th century view.
So, it seems to me that parenti is attacking a strawman..
If you are interested in Roman history, one of the most influential and respected historians is E. Badian, who has done a great job in elucidating the patron/client-relationships in Roman culture.
The view I expressed in my first post, is the flippant version of Badian's more sober view on julius ceasar.

EDIT: I added an important "not". Sorry..