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Who's Bigger?: Where Historical Figures Really Rank
Is Hitler bigger than Napoleon? Washington bigger than Lincoln? Picasso bigger than Einstein? Quantitative analysts are rapidly finding homes in social and cultural domains, from finance to politics. What about history? In this fascinating book, Steve Skiena and Charles Ward bring quantitative analysis to bear on ranking and comparing historical reputations. They evaluate each person by aggregating the traces of millions of opinions, just as Google ranks webpages. The book includes a technical discussion for readers interested in the details of the methods, but no mathematical or computational background is necessary to understand the rankings or conclusions. Did you know: Got a spare billion dollars, and want to be remembered forever? Your best investment is to get a university named after you. Women remain significantly underrepresented in the historical record compared to men and have long required substantially greater achievement levels to get equally noted for posterity. The long-term prominence of Elvis Presley rivals that of the most famous classical composers. Roll over Beethoven, and tell Tchaikovsky the news! Along the way, the authors present the rankings of more than one thousand of history's most significant people in science, politics, entertainment, and all areas of human endeavor. Anyone interested in history or biography can see where their favorite figures place in the grand scheme of things. While revisiting old historical friends and making new ones, you will come to understand the forces that shape historical recognition in a whole new light.
- GenresHistoryNonfiction
391 pages, Hardcover
First published October 14, 2013
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522 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
August 3, 2016
Using quantitative analysis (somewhat similar to Google's pagerank) on the english-language Wikipedia's entries to rate historical personalities, the authors come up with a quantifiable measure of their significance. This is an interesting undertaking in and of itself, and while such data mining isn't a replacement for traditional social science (and neither do the authors suggest that), it can be a very useful tool to complement more traditional assessments of the influence/importance of historical figures.
What is interesting is that even though one would expect such an analysis to inherit the biases and blindspots of the dataset they are working with, it actually highlights some of those shortcomings. For instance the authors found that of all the men and women mentioned in Wikipedia, the average significance of women (even though there were far fewer of them) was higher than that of men, implying that the threshold below which people are considered insignificant to warrant encyclopedia entries, is much higher for women than men.
It would be interesting to see the same analysis extended to other large datasets which would give insight into who is considered significant by other cultures and groups of people.
What is interesting is that even though one would expect such an analysis to inherit the biases and blindspots of the dataset they are working with, it actually highlights some of those shortcomings. For instance the authors found that of all the men and women mentioned in Wikipedia, the average significance of women (even though there were far fewer of them) was higher than that of men, implying that the threshold below which people are considered insignificant to warrant encyclopedia entries, is much higher for women than men.
It would be interesting to see the same analysis extended to other large datasets which would give insight into who is considered significant by other cultures and groups of people.
January 11, 2014
Entertaining, provocative, fresh. Who's Bigger? contains the results of and commentary on a computer algorithm that used source data from Wikipedia and Google to rank the most significant historical figures. Beside the list itself, the book has two main sections. Roughly the first half of the book explains the development, meaning, and value of the list. It also looks at other ways that people have tried to create a canon of historical figures (history books, halls of fame, etc.) and compares them with the list. The second half of the book breaks the list into various categories of people (US Presidents, world leaders, artists, etc.) to show how the ranking data can be used to tell certain kinds of historical narratives. One creative chapter told the story of recorded history by dividing each century into five 20-year blocks and focusing on the most significant person born in that block.
It would be easy to take the details of the list too seriously, e.g., this person should be #12, not #9, or Aristotle before Plato? However, I think the greater danger lies in not taking the authors' achievement seriously enough. One thing history provides people is calibration. It is only through history that we realize that things such as democracy, Western dominance, universal education, and effective medical treatment are not given by nature but the outcomes of contingent processes, outcomes that distinguish the present from the majority of history. History also takes the individual out of his or her corner of the world, enriching his or her canon of significant figures through contact with those of other civilizations. I believe this book can be a tool for calibrating one's historical sense. One chapter uses the list to critique one of the authors' daughter's fifth grade history textbook. The question is how well calibrated the book is to its subject matter. (It is debatable, of course, whether only the most significant historical figures should be included in history education. "Everyperson" figures have their uses, and who exactly gets included will always be largely arbitrary. My guess is that some of the more puzzling figures in the daughter's textbook were subjects of the contributors' personal research.)
I am a professional historian. This book made me think more deeply about what historical significance means and about how it can be distinguished from mere popularity or notoriety. (The algorithm was designed to make precisely those distinctions and seems to do so pretty well.) It also challenged me to imagine what kinds of quantitative analysis would most enrich my work. Finally, it was thoroughly entertaining. The authors have a gift for drawing useful morals out of seemingly trivial topics, such as who gets included in the Baseball Hall of Fame. Works of this sort are no substitutes for histories that narrate events and discuss causes, but they are welcome additions.
It would be easy to take the details of the list too seriously, e.g., this person should be #12, not #9, or Aristotle before Plato? However, I think the greater danger lies in not taking the authors' achievement seriously enough. One thing history provides people is calibration. It is only through history that we realize that things such as democracy, Western dominance, universal education, and effective medical treatment are not given by nature but the outcomes of contingent processes, outcomes that distinguish the present from the majority of history. History also takes the individual out of his or her corner of the world, enriching his or her canon of significant figures through contact with those of other civilizations. I believe this book can be a tool for calibrating one's historical sense. One chapter uses the list to critique one of the authors' daughter's fifth grade history textbook. The question is how well calibrated the book is to its subject matter. (It is debatable, of course, whether only the most significant historical figures should be included in history education. "Everyperson" figures have their uses, and who exactly gets included will always be largely arbitrary. My guess is that some of the more puzzling figures in the daughter's textbook were subjects of the contributors' personal research.)
I am a professional historian. This book made me think more deeply about what historical significance means and about how it can be distinguished from mere popularity or notoriety. (The algorithm was designed to make precisely those distinctions and seems to do so pretty well.) It also challenged me to imagine what kinds of quantitative analysis would most enrich my work. Finally, it was thoroughly entertaining. The authors have a gift for drawing useful morals out of seemingly trivial topics, such as who gets included in the Baseball Hall of Fame. Works of this sort are no substitutes for histories that narrate events and discuss causes, but they are welcome additions.
January 12, 2014
Who's Bigger? Where Historical Figures Really Rank by Steven S. Skiena (with Charles Ward) is a 2013 Cambridge University Publication. I was provided a copy of this book by the publisher and Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
People love list. This is true. So, when the question is asked, "Is Hitler bigger than Napoleon?" I had to wonder how world leaders, movie stars, TV stars, etc. all really stacked up against one another. Using a complex system featuring Quantitative analyst- Google, Wikipedia to put together a rank and file, then compared it to previous list by say- Life magazine.
Keep in mind while we are dealing with historical figures, the authors are not historians. The data they collected and their system for calculating how well Aristotle did against Plato and so forth was mind numbing.
The author (s) went over the system and included so much "Stuff" in there so we could see how their list compared with other list and how the mathematical system dictated the order. For the average reader, this might be a little too daunting of a task and it severely took away the pleasure of reading the list and debating whether or not I agreed. My mind was on such overload the text began looking like symbols and complicated math equations instead of a book.
The concept is a unique one and the idea was good. It is a fact of life that the internet is a tool we all rely on heavily for information. Using Wikipedia and Google for statistics and data is not an outlandish concept. I see this as normal in our everyday lives and students in particular rely of on the internet for information. The number of "hits" a celebrity gets on Wikipedia compared to the number a world leader, past or present gets is also shocking.
So, while I applaud the inventiveness of the book, I found myself swallowing a couple of Tylenol before bed one night. I haven't been in school for a long time and I do pretty well with grammar and spelling, but this taxed my brain a little too much for it to be enjoyable.
Overall this one is a C.
People love list. This is true. So, when the question is asked, "Is Hitler bigger than Napoleon?" I had to wonder how world leaders, movie stars, TV stars, etc. all really stacked up against one another. Using a complex system featuring Quantitative analyst- Google, Wikipedia to put together a rank and file, then compared it to previous list by say- Life magazine.
Keep in mind while we are dealing with historical figures, the authors are not historians. The data they collected and their system for calculating how well Aristotle did against Plato and so forth was mind numbing.
The author (s) went over the system and included so much "Stuff" in there so we could see how their list compared with other list and how the mathematical system dictated the order. For the average reader, this might be a little too daunting of a task and it severely took away the pleasure of reading the list and debating whether or not I agreed. My mind was on such overload the text began looking like symbols and complicated math equations instead of a book.
The concept is a unique one and the idea was good. It is a fact of life that the internet is a tool we all rely on heavily for information. Using Wikipedia and Google for statistics and data is not an outlandish concept. I see this as normal in our everyday lives and students in particular rely of on the internet for information. The number of "hits" a celebrity gets on Wikipedia compared to the number a world leader, past or present gets is also shocking.
So, while I applaud the inventiveness of the book, I found myself swallowing a couple of Tylenol before bed one night. I haven't been in school for a long time and I do pretty well with grammar and spelling, but this taxed my brain a little too much for it to be enjoyable.
Overall this one is a C.
November 27, 2013
This is a fascinating book with an extremely interesting concept. The authors use the incredible power of the internet, Wikipedia, and Google's Ngrams to create a mathematical rating system (significance) for people, both current and historical. They then use these data to compare people in many areas, professions, and times.
They explain their processes and calculation very well and then provide comparisons with "experts" and "Top 100" lists, etc. to validate that what they measure is actually doing the job. Then they delve into literally scores of categories to compare the most significant figures. Was Thomas Edison more significant than Alexander Graham Bell or Eli Whitney? Who was the most significant world leader between the world wars? Which King or Pope had the most long-term significance?
They do admit that the data in Anglo-centric, all of the data is in English, and they have made a correction for recency. All in all it is fascinating to wander through their tables and graphs and see where my personal favorites fell.
One criticism I have is that there is really too much data and too many categories and too many comparisons. It would have been better to focus in more depth on fewer categories and dive deeper into the data, leaving the more esoteric areas to another volume or to the internet (they have a very nice companion website).
For everyone interested in history and interested in numerical comparisons (for any area - baseball, business, the arts, etc.) the book is highly recommended.
They explain their processes and calculation very well and then provide comparisons with "experts" and "Top 100" lists, etc. to validate that what they measure is actually doing the job. Then they delve into literally scores of categories to compare the most significant figures. Was Thomas Edison more significant than Alexander Graham Bell or Eli Whitney? Who was the most significant world leader between the world wars? Which King or Pope had the most long-term significance?
They do admit that the data in Anglo-centric, all of the data is in English, and they have made a correction for recency. All in all it is fascinating to wander through their tables and graphs and see where my personal favorites fell.
One criticism I have is that there is really too much data and too many categories and too many comparisons. It would have been better to focus in more depth on fewer categories and dive deeper into the data, leaving the more esoteric areas to another volume or to the internet (they have a very nice companion website).
For everyone interested in history and interested in numerical comparisons (for any area - baseball, business, the arts, etc.) the book is highly recommended.
July 9, 2017
Didn't finish. While reading I couldn't help thinking that the entire idea is quite alien to me. I comprehend how the ranking systems work in sports: Nadal is of a higher rank then John Doe, hence there is a fat chance that Nadal beats up John Doe should he happen to confront him. But what about the subject of the book - who is bigger? Abraham Lincoln would kick Hitler's ass? Lord Byron would defeat Eminem in a spelling contest?
In short, what this book lacks is an application of Popper's criterion. The method doesn't make any useful predictions and, hence, merely justifies authors' tastes on the rather rhetorical subject.
As an exercise in a quite intriguing subject of quantitative analysis of the data on Wikipedia the book might be interesting. I just would like to read about more rigorous applications. I might revisit it someday.
In short, what this book lacks is an application of Popper's criterion. The method doesn't make any useful predictions and, hence, merely justifies authors' tastes on the rather rhetorical subject.
As an exercise in a quite intriguing subject of quantitative analysis of the data on Wikipedia the book might be interesting. I just would like to read about more rigorous applications. I might revisit it someday.
June 24, 2019
At a certain point it gets repetitive and the rank of historical figures on article-based things seems flawed when impact of one thing could be so large as to outweigh someone who did many medium sized things
July 28, 2016
I recently read Chuck Klosterman’s newest book “
But What If We’re Wrong?”, which covers a number of questions about what we as a society might have gotten wrong, like what will people in the future remember as important. One of the key topics he brings up relates back to a question he asks people about popular music: Name a marching band composer. He claims there’s only one composer that people come up with, John Phillips Sousa, and even though marching band music was wildly popular 100 years ago, society’s memory is reduced to this single exemplar. Skiena and Ward’s book “Who’s Bigger?”, which was released almost 3 years prior to Klosterman’s book, covers that last topic in some detail.
“Who’s Bigger?” takes content and metadata from Wikipedia and from scanned books from Google’s n-gram corpus to help rank the famous and infamous in terms of significance. The book starts with a description of the process in a readable way light on technology. Once they have their list, adjusted for the varieties of things you can adjust for (like normalizing for recency), they go to town. By that, I mean they test the list against other lists, like money earnings of actors, lists of greatest presidents created by historians, baseball card prices, size and success of a country under the term of a leader, etc. They look for correlation and find them. The authors have an excellent chapter taking a tour into Bill James territory (like this one
), analyzing in some detail the Baseball Hall of Fame voting results over time. The last part of the book is a ranking of significance of people in history based on their analyzed list, broken down by various characteristics. It is quite interesting to see how the list breaks down. My favorite - historically significant gangsters.
There are a few obvious limitations, given the limited sources of the information and the societal bias they reflect – the data is very English language centric. And I would love to see if there's some predictive capability in this model over time. But still, this is a lot of fun. The authors treat the topics with some levity and personality. Where else would you find Marvelous Marv Throneberry mentioned in the same book as Hitler, Gandhi, Hammurabi, and Jenny Lind? And where else would you see those same folks ranked by historical recognition and significance. (Spoiler: Marv is not on the top of that list.) When I reviewed the Klosterman book, I said that it was like one of those discussions you had in college arguing over something hypothetical at best, like the immortal question “Who’s better, Batman or Superman?” I remember those kinds of discussions were what made college kinda fun. “Who’s Bigger?” fits the same mold, and is as enjoyable. And if “Seinfeld” was still filming, I could see Kramer referring to this book…
But What If We’re Wrong?”, which covers a number of questions about what we as a society might have gotten wrong, like what will people in the future remember as important. One of the key topics he brings up relates back to a question he asks people about popular music: Name a marching band composer. He claims there’s only one composer that people come up with, John Phillips Sousa, and even though marching band music was wildly popular 100 years ago, society’s memory is reduced to this single exemplar. Skiena and Ward’s book “Who’s Bigger?”, which was released almost 3 years prior to Klosterman’s book, covers that last topic in some detail. “Who’s Bigger?” takes content and metadata from Wikipedia and from scanned books from Google’s n-gram corpus to help rank the famous and infamous in terms of significance. The book starts with a description of the process in a readable way light on technology. Once they have their list, adjusted for the varieties of things you can adjust for (like normalizing for recency), they go to town. By that, I mean they test the list against other lists, like money earnings of actors, lists of greatest presidents created by historians, baseball card prices, size and success of a country under the term of a leader, etc. They look for correlation and find them. The authors have an excellent chapter taking a tour into Bill James territory (like this one
), analyzing in some detail the Baseball Hall of Fame voting results over time. The last part of the book is a ranking of significance of people in history based on their analyzed list, broken down by various characteristics. It is quite interesting to see how the list breaks down. My favorite - historically significant gangsters.There are a few obvious limitations, given the limited sources of the information and the societal bias they reflect – the data is very English language centric. And I would love to see if there's some predictive capability in this model over time. But still, this is a lot of fun. The authors treat the topics with some levity and personality. Where else would you find Marvelous Marv Throneberry mentioned in the same book as Hitler, Gandhi, Hammurabi, and Jenny Lind? And where else would you see those same folks ranked by historical recognition and significance. (Spoiler: Marv is not on the top of that list.) When I reviewed the Klosterman book, I said that it was like one of those discussions you had in college arguing over something hypothetical at best, like the immortal question “Who’s better, Batman or Superman?” I remember those kinds of discussions were what made college kinda fun. “Who’s Bigger?” fits the same mold, and is as enjoyable. And if “Seinfeld” was still filming, I could see Kramer referring to this book…
April 16, 2014
Interesting, but the further I read, I kept wondering why does anyone care whether George Washington is "bigger" than Socrates or King Arthur? Does it really matter who ranks where in the Top 100 of History's Most Significant People?
I'm sure there are some folks who care about such matters as these. However, I am not one of them...
I'm sure there are some folks who care about such matters as these. However, I am not one of them...
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October 27, 2013I am a history buff & luv 2 win/read this book
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews