影响美国100人

The Most Influential Figures In American History.

1 Abraham Lincoln
He saved the Union, freed the slaves, and presided over America’s second founding.

2 George Washington
He made the United States possible—not only by defeating a king, but by declining to become one himself.

3 Thomas Jefferson
The author of the five most important words in American history: “All men are created equal.”

4 Franklin Delano Roosevelt
He said, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself,” and then he proved it.

5 Alexander Hamilton
Soldier, banker, and political scientist, he set in motion an agrarian nation’s transformation into an industrial power. 你信不信此人是徐志摩早年的偶像之一，徐志摩的剑桥岁月前, 有一段美国留学生活学习政治经济，就是想成为中国的汉弥尔顿。

6 Benjamin Franklin
The Founder-of-all-trades— scientist, printer, writer, diplomat, inventor, and more; like his country, he contained multitudes.

7 John Marshall
The defining chief justice, he established the Supreme Court as the equal of the other two federal branches.

8 Martin Luther King Jr.
His dream of racial equality is still elusive, but no one did more to make it real.

9 Thomas Edison
It wasn’t just the lightbulb; the Wizard of Menlo Park was the most prolific inventor in American history.

10 Woodrow Wilson
He made the world safe for U.S. interventionism, if not for democracy.

11 John D. Rockefeller
The man behind Standard Oil set the mold for our tycoons—first by making money, then by giving it away.

12 Ulysses S. Grant　
He was a poor president, but he was the general Lincoln needed; he also wrote the greatest political memoir in American history.

13 James Madison　
He fathered the Constitution and wrote the Bill of Rights.

14 Henry Ford
He gave us the assembly line and the Model T, and sparked America’s love affair with the automobile.

15 Theodore Roosevelt
Whether busting trusts or building canals, he embodied the “strenuous life” and blazed a trail for twentieth-century America.

16 Mark Twain
Author of our national epic, he was the most unsentimental observer of our national life.

17 Ronald Reagan
The amiable architect of both the conservative realignment and the Cold War’s end.

18 Andrew Jackson
The first great populist: he found America a republic and left it a democracy.

19 Thomas Paine
The voice of the American Revolution, and our first great radical.

20 Andrew Carnegie
The original self-made man forged America’s industrial might and became one of the nation’s greatest philanthropists.

21 Harry Truman
An accidental president, this machine politician ushered in the Atomic Age and then the Cold War.

22 Walt Whitman
He sang of America and shaped the country’s conception of itself.

23 Wright Brothers
They got us all off the ground.

24 Alexander Graham Bell
By inventing the telephone, he opened the age of telecommunications and shrank the world.

25 John Adams
His leadership made the American Revolution possible; his devotion to republicanism made it succeed.

26 Walt Disney
The quintessential entertainer-entrepreneur, he wielded unmatched influence over our childhood.

27 Eli Whitney
His gin made cotton king and sustained an empire for slavery.

28 Dwight Eisenhower
He won a war and two elections, and made everybody like Ike.

29 Earl Warren
His Supreme Court transformed American society and bequeathed to us the culture wars.

30 Elizabeth Cady Stanto
One of the first great American feminists, she fought for social reform and women’s right to vote.

31 Henry Clay
One of America’s greatest legislators and orators, he forged compromises that held off civil war for decades.

32 Albert Einstein
His greatest scientific work was done in Europe, but his humanity earned him undying fame in America.

33 Ralph Waldo Emerson
The bard of individualism, he relied on himself—and told us all to do the same. 他可是Transcendentalism的鼻祖。

34 Jonas Salk　
His vaccine for polio eradicated one of the world’s worst plagues. (小儿麻痹疫苗的最早发明者）


35 Jackie Robinson
He broke baseball’s color barrier and embodied integration’s promise. （第一位黑人棒球明星）


36 William Jennings Bryan
“The Great Commoner” lost three presidential elections, but his populism transformed the country. (20世纪初著名政治运动家，反达尔文主义头头)


37 J. P. Morgan
The great financier and banker was the prototype for all the Wall Street barons who followed.

38 Susan B. Anthony
She was the country’s most eloquent voice for women’s equality under the law. (早在1872年带领一群妇女参加总统竞选投票，遭到起诉）


39 Rachel Carson
The author of Silent Spring was godmother to the environmental movement. （海洋生物学家，以著作《寂静的春天》开启了环保事业）


40 John Dewey
He sought to make the public school a training ground for democratic life. 著名哲学家、教育家，实用主义的开山大师，胡适的老师. 这位老师抢走了和胡适异恋的Roberta.Lowitze。

41 Harriet Beecher Stowe
Her Uncle Tom’s Cabin inspired a generation of abolitionists and set the stage for civil war.

42 Eleanor Roosevelt
She used the first lady’s office and the mass media to become “first lady of the world.”

43 W. E. B. DuBois
One of America’s great intellectuals, he made the “problem of the color line” his life’s work.

44 Lyndon Baines Johnson
His brilliance gave us civil-rights laws; his stubbornness gave us Vietnam. JFK遇刺后就是他上台了，于是将美国拖入越战泥潭。

45 Samuel F. B. Morse
Before the Internet, there was Morse code.

46 William Lloyd Garrison　
Through his newspaper, The Liberator, he became the voice of abolition. (费奴主义先行者）


47 Frederick Douglass
After escaping from slavery, he pricked the nation’s conscience with an eloquent accounting of its crimes.

48 Robert Oppenheimer
The father of the atomic bomb and the regretful midwife of the nuclear era. 不知道原子弹之父罗伯特•奥本海默的人不多吧

49 Frederick Law Olmsted　
The genius behind New York’s Central Park, he inspired the greening of America’s cities. (人人都知道中央公园，就是没听说过其设计者）

50 James K. Polk　
This one-term president’s Mexican War landgrab gave us California, Texas, and the Southwest. (第十一任圈地大总统，大大改变美国版图)　


51 Margaret Sanger
The ardent champion of birth control—and of the sexual freedom that came with it.

52 Joseph Smith
The founder of Mormonism, America’s most famous homegrown faith。

53 Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.
Known as “The Great Dissenter,” he wrote Supreme Court opinions that continue to shape American jurisprudence.

54 Bill Gates
The Rockefeller of the Information Age, in business and philanthropy alike.

55 John Quincy Adams
The Monroe Doctrine’s real author, he set nineteenth-century America’s diplomatic course. 提出所谓“门罗主义”，也是美国第一位老子当了总统儿子继任的儿子总统。

56 Horace Mann
His tireless advocacy of universal public schooling earned him the title “The Father of American Education.” 知道霍桑的人也许听说过他，这两人有点关系，他们的老婆是姐妹。

57 Robert E. Lee
He was a good general but a better symbol, embodying conciliation in defeat. 怎么说南方人还是爱他。

58 John C. Calhoun
The voice of the antebellum South, he was slavery’s most ardent defender. (内战前奴隶制的坚强拥护者)

59 Louis Sullivan
The father of architectural modernism, he shaped the defining American building: the skyscraper. (美国现代建筑奠基人，摩天大楼之父)


60 William Faulkner
The most gifted chronicler of America’s tormented and fascinating South. 南方的大文豪，那部时光错乱The Sound and The Fury 开头让我读得头痛。

61 Samuel Gompers
The country’s greatest labor organizer, he made the golden age of unions possible. (劳联之父，和芝加哥劳动节起源事件领导者是一帮的)


62 William James
The mind behind Pragmatism, America’s most important philosophical school. 你也许不知道他，但你却可能知道小他一岁的弟弟Henry James, 美国早期著名作家。

63 George Marshall
As a general, he organized the American effort in World War II; as a statesman, he rebuilt Western Europe.

64 Jane Addams
The founder of Hull House, she became the secular saint of social work. 芝加哥的人一定知道她，她是美国第一位获诺贝尔和平奖的女性。


65 Henry David Thoreau
The original American dropout, he has inspired seekers of authenticity for 150 years. 又是先验主义大师，他笔下的自然是灵性的妙曼的，喜欢他的文字。

66 Elvis Presley
The king of rock and roll. Enough said.

67 P. T. Barnum
The circus impresario’s taste for spectacle paved the way for blockbuster movies and reality TV. （十九世纪的马戏大师）


68 James D. Watson
He codiscovered DNA’s double helix, revealing the code of life to scientists and entrepreneurs alike. 没有他发现的DNA双螺旋结构，很难想象现在的生命科学发展到什么地步。

69 James Gordon Bennett
As the founding publisher of The New York Herald, he invented the modern American newspaper. （他创办了《纽约先驱论坛报》，《国际先驱论坛报》的前身.）



70 Lewis and Clark　
They went west to explore, and millions followed in their wake. （著名远征探险家，对美国的版图贡献巨大）


71 Noah Webster
He didn’t create American English, but his dictionary defined it.

72 Sam Walton
He promised us “Every Day Low Prices,” and we took him up on the offer. 再读一遍他的名字，就是Sam's Club和Walmart。

73 Cyrus McCormick
His mechanical reaper spelled the end of traditional farming, and the beginning of industrial agriculture. (没有他的收割机就没有美国农业现代化)


74 Brigham Young
What Joseph Smith founded, Young preserved, leading the Mormons to their promised land. 很多人可能不知道声名赫赫的杨伯翰大学其实最初就是个摩门学院，杨伯翰是Joseph Smith的弟子。

75 George Herman “Babe” Ruth　
He saved the national pastime in the wake of the Black Sox scandal—and permanently linked sports and celebrity. (懂棒球的人都知道，可惜我不懂体育)


76 Frank Lloyd Wright
America’s most significant architect, he was the archetype of the visionary artist at odds with capitalism. 二十世纪上半叶著名建筑师，最经典的就是那个流水瀑布别墅Fallingwater。

77 Betty Friedan
She spoke to the discontent of housewives everywhere—and inspired a revolution in gender roles. 第二次女性主义浪潮领军人物，于是家庭主妇数量锐减。

78 John Brown
Whether a hero, a fanatic, or both, he provided the spark for the Civil War.

79 Louis Armstrong
His talent and charisma took jazz from the cathouses of Storyville to Broadway, television, and beyond. 从新奥尔良走出来的爵士音乐家。

80 Willaim Randolph Hearst
The press baron who perfected yellow journalism and helped start the Spanish-American War. 爱看时尚杂志Cosmopolitan, Seventeen, Esquire, Harper's BAZZAR的人知不知道创始人是他呢？《公民凯恩》的原型。

81 Margaret Mead
With Coming of Age in Samoa, she made anthropology relevant—and controversial. 不算了解她，但是他的同门师姐的书Zora Neale Hurston全部都读过了, 她们俩的导师现代人类学之父Franz Boas更牛。

82 George Gallup
He asked Americans what they thought, and the politicians listened.　就是那个盖洛普调查了。

83 James Fenimore Cooper　
The novels are unreadable, but he was the first great mythologizer of the frontier. 美国早期的多产多元作家。

84 Thurgood Marshall
As a lawyer and a Supreme Court justice, he was the legal architect of the civil-rights revolution.

85 Ernest Hemingway
His spare style defined American modernism, and his life made machismo a cliché.

86 Mary Baker Eddy
She got off her sickbed and founded Christian Science, which promised spiritual healing to all. (她创建基督教科学，还是《基督教科学箴言报》的创始人。)


87 Benjamin Spock
With a single book—and a singular approach—he changed American parenting. (他的《育儿宝典》影响了现代美国人的教子观)


88 Enrico Fermi
A giant of physics, he helped develop quantum theory and was instrumental in building the atomic bomb.

89 Walter Lippmann
The last man who could swing an election with a newspaper column. (二十世纪美国最有影响力的政论家，创办了New Repulic )


90 Jonathan Edwards
Forget the fire and brimstone: his subtle eloquence made him the country’s most influential theologian. (大觉醒运动的主要领导者之一)


91 Lyman Beecher　
Harriet Beecher Stowe’s clergyman father earned fame as an abolitionist and an evangelist. 你可以不知道他，但你肯定知道他的女儿斯托夫人的《汤姆叔叔的小屋》。

92 John Steinbeck
As the creator of Tom Joad, he chronicled Depression-era misery. 《愤怒的葡萄》《伊甸园之东》都值得一读。

93 Nat Turner
He was the most successful rebel slave; his specter would stalk the white South for a century. 关于他的一本小说获得1968年普利茨奖。

94 George Eastman
The founder of Kodak democratized photography with his handy rolls of film.

95 Sam Goldwyn
A producer for forty years, he was the first great Hollywood mogul.

96 Ralph Nader　
He made the cars we drive safer; thirty years later, he made George W. Bush the president. (公民政治运动家，现代消费者运动之父)


97 Stephen Foster
America’s first great songwriter, he brought us “O! Susanna” and “My Old Kentucky Home.”　应该是美国的王洛宾。

98 Booker T. Washington
As an educator and a champion of self-help, he tried to lead black America up from slavery. 黑人政治家、教育家、作家。

99 Richard Nixon
He broke the New Deal majority, and then broke his presidency on a scandal that still haunts America.

100 Herman Melville　
Moby Dick was a flop at the time, but Melville is remembered as the American Shakespeare. 传奇经历的草根作家，写起故事栩栩如生，扣人心弦，美国小孩小时候都读他。

来源：文学城: 秋瑟潺湲

米尔顿-弗里德曼(Milton Friedman)

这个LIST有100多人,居然没包括milton friedman???林贝卡,相信我,一个20人的LIST都必须包括他.

米尔顿-弗里德曼(Milton Friedman) ，2006年11月16日去世，享年94岁。他是最后一位既家喻户晓又拥有最高专业成就的伟大经济学家。在这方面,人们常常将他与约翰-梅纳德-凯恩斯(John Maynard Keynes)相提并论。弗里德曼始终对凯恩斯心怀敬意，尽管他本人在某种程度上已经取代了凯恩斯。

他的赞赏者与批评者均指出，他的世界观本质上颇为简单：坚定信仰个人自由，深信自由市场是协调个人活动、实现每个人理想的最佳途径。

摧毁苏联东欧共产主义的不是里根总统，而是FRIEDMAN教授。FRIEDMAN教授思想改变了世界20世纪最后25年的国际政治潮流。

来源：文学城 宋哲学


在我们理解美国文化的同时，我们学到了两点：

1。他们永远歌颂自己的先贤，从来不会去鞭鞑。那像我们的一些文人，恨不得把自己的老祖宗说得一无是处他才高兴。何况人无完人。他们永远歌颂历史事件的正面意义，而不会去严苛自己先贤在历史事件中的过错，或事件本身所带来的负面影响。也就是说不会责备求全。不会用现代的观点去批判自己的历史。

2。他告诉我们，当我们看美国人写的历史的时候，它一定是一面之词，那就是永远歌颂自己的历史。我们要想看到他的另一面，一定要从他的对手那里看看是怎么回事。在这种意义上说，西方文化是最不辨证的，它可以批评别人，谴责别人，但绝不容许别人来诋毁它自己，他也不会在自己的历史上留下自我谴责的一笔。在这一点上，他们比东方文化狭隘和小气，东方文化比他们宽宏和大气得多。

另外，也让我们看到了西方人不重视它的历史的原因，至少是不追究一个人或一件事的历史，他们可能也知道那是粉饰过的。他们喜欢往前看，这也成就了他们的创造力。这有值得我们学习。

来源：文学城 杨子