The hundred is a ranking of the 100 most influential people throughout history. Each person has a short, 5-10 page article with large black and white pictures every few pages. Michael H. Hart describes the artist’s, or leader’s, or inventor’s background and accomplishments with enthusiasm and the reasons he ranked them where they are. Many times these people die and are forgotten for 100 years before being recognized for their achievements. On the other hand, many other people were extremely famous during their lifetime, but their influence gradually faded. In Hart’s introduction he talks about his method of ranking and how some fields of work are more influential than others. He encourages people to disagree with him and give there own reasoning. Here are five of people he put in his book that I liked.

1. Muhammad:

  Muhammad is ranked number 1 in this book, so I think I’ll start with him. Most people would say Muhammad would be in the top 5, but not very many would say number 1. This is why I found him so interesting. The main reason, I think, that he is rated so highly is because he came up with Islam all by himself. He started holy wars that have affected millions of people just in his life time. Those wars led to other wars over time and affected even more people and that’s just the political view of it. The religious view is that many people are on their knees three times a day for a god he said was true. Believers in his religion have to go to Mecca, a city he made holy, at least once in their life time. Not only is it the amount of influence on an individual,but the sheer numbers of people that believe in Islam.

2. Isaac Newton:

Newton is ranked number 2 in the book so why not put him second. I was surprised that Newton was ranked above Jesus. There’s pretty much one solid reason why Newton is ranked so very high. He was by far the best in his field, science. Michelangelo was just as good in his field as Newton if not better. But he is ranked number 50! His reasoning for this is that science is much more influential than art. I don’t think the author is criticizing Michelangelo, just saying that he wasn’t as influential. The difference between Newton and Muhammad is that Newton’s contribution to science is like a base to a pyramid, with other scientists building sections on top of his but his piece always being the largest. Muhammad just made the whole pyramid. But wait, why is Newton ranked higher than Christ?

3. Jesus Christ:

The first thing most people do when they read this book is look at “The List”. “The List” is the ranking of the 100 from 1 to 100 in the front of the book. When they see Jesus is ranked number 3 they are surprised. Many people think Jesus should be ranked higher than Muhammad simply because Christianity has more followers than Islam. Before I read this book I would have agreed with them to put Jesus at the top. But, since Jesus did not leave many disciples, Christianity problebly would have died out if not for St. Paul. So really Jesus gets only half the credit of Christianity. Plus, there are several different types of Christianity demonstrating that people interpret Jesus in many different ways. Muhammad on the other hand has only two splits of his religion, Shih and Sunni. Now that we’ve gone over the top three, I’d like to go to people I found interesting.

4. Ts’ai Lun: I picked Lun because when people look down “The List” the first person they see that they haven’t heard of is surprisingly high, number 7 to be exact. Ts’ai Lun was born in around 105 A.D. He was an official at the Chinese imperial court. His reasoning for being on the list is the simplest of all I’ve read. He invented paper. It came out of nowhere. The world needed something to write on and he just went to the emperor and said “Hey, look what I got.” He got a promotion, got into some trouble a few years later and committed suicide. I think that it’s important to read the article about him. Just to know who he is. If most people don’t know the person who made it possible to make books and spread knowledge all over the world, then well that’s pretty bad. Finally I have one of the only two women on the list.

5. Queen Isabella I:

Queen Isabella I of Castile is most remembered in history as the person who financed Christopher Columbus’s journey. But really she did a lot more than that. She ended Civil wars in Spain and united the country, repelled the Moslem invasion, and created a police force called the inquision that slowed down Spain while the rest of western Europe was becoming really advanced. Today, Spain still hasn’t recovered from this action. Isabella is ranked 65. Many people think that the author was discriminating by putting kind of low. But really she just wasn’t that important. The reason there are so few women is because the world has a history of discrimination against women. This unfairness has given women a disadvantage in the world and people wouldn’t give them a chance. The same is true with blacks and Jews.

I hope my article encourages you to read Michael H. Hart’s “The 100”. Keep in mind that it’s 30 years old (With the updated version being 12 years old). So people like Bill Gates won’t be in there. I think it’s a great book and well worth a read.