THE 100 MOST INFLUENTIAL WORLD LEADERS OF ALL TIME

What does it mean to be a leader? Does it require that a person hold political office and rule masses? Does it include only those who made a positive impact on society or also those who wreaked devastation and destruction? Do humanitarians or activists who never held office but who had the ability to stir thousands and millions with a vision of a different, better world merit inclusion? Many very different types of leaders are profiled in this book, which is arranged chronologically by date of birth. It ends with Osama bin Laden and Barack Obama. One is a mastermind of terrorist acts that have killed thousands and another a politician who overcame the weight of hundreds of years of slavery and discrimination against blacks to become the first African American elected president of the most powerful country in the world. They are opposites in almost every imaginable way. Bin Laden leads a global jihad against Western values, and Obama, the symbolic leader of the West, was the recipient of the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize. They are linked, however, in their ability to inspire loyal followers—in bin Laden’s case to commit destruction and in Obama’s to believe that ordinary citizens, acting together, can change a sometimes seemingly bleak world for the better—and in their lasting impact on the world in which they and future generations will live.