"Top 100 Global Thinkers" List Released: Some Names May Surprise You
Foreign Policy just released its first annual list of 100 Top Global Thinkers. While the list included many of the world's leading intellectuals, one person stood out for me— No. 57, Baltasar Garzón, Judge for the National Court of Spain. Garzon indicted Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet in 1998 during the ex-president's trip to London and has since acquired a reputation as a legal crusader against corrupt government officials. Garzón believes that laws extend beyond national boundaries---- making him a hero to the human rights world, a pain to politicians, and a major intellectual force for international jurisprudence.
Another person on the list that stood out for me was No. 70, Esther Dyson, for accurately forecasting how the Internet will shape us. In a 1995 Wired magazine essay, the internet entrepreneur presciently theorized that the easy replication and distribution of digital content meant that companies would ultimately give it away for free and profit from other merchandise and services.
It was disappointing to see that Hernando de Soto, who Bill Clinton called "the world's greatest living economist.," did not make the list. I had the honor of meeting De Soto last month and wrote about his remarkable keynote speech in an earlier post.
There are some names on the list that surprised me--including one below.
Here’s the top 20:
1. Ben Bernanke
2. Barack Obama
3. Zahra Rahnavard
4. Nouriel Roubini
5. Rajendra Pachauri
6. Bill Clinton and Hillary Rodham Clinton
7. Cass Sunstein and Richard Thaler
8. David Petraeus
9. Zhou Xiaochuan
10. Sayyid Imam al-Sharif
11. Fernando Henrique Cardoso
12. Bill Gates
13. Dick Cheney
14. Larry Summers
15. Martin Wolf
16. Mohamed El-Erian
17. Benedict XVI
18. Richard Dawkins
19. Malcolm Gladwell
20. Ashraf Ghani and Clare Lockhart
Did any names on the list surprise you?
