The Prospect/FP Global public intellectuals poll—results
Over 20,000 people voted for their top names from our original longlist of 100.
Position | Name | Total votes |
1 | Noam Chomsky | 4827 |
2 | Umberto Eco | 2464 |
3 | Richard Dawkins | 2188 |
4 | Václav Havel | 1990 |
5 | Christopher Hitchens | 1844 |
6 | Paul Krugman | 1746 |
7 | Jürgen Habermas | 1639 |
8 | Amartya Sen | 1590 |
9 | Jared Diamond | 1499 |
10 | Salman Rushdie | 1468 |
11 | Naomi Klein | 1378 |
12 | Shirin Ebadi | 1309 |
13 | Hernando De Soto | 1202 |
14 | Bjørn Lomborg | 1141 |
15 | Abdolkarim Soroush | 1114 |
16 | Thomas Friedman | 1049 |
17 | Pope Benedict XVI | 1046 |
18 | Eric Hobsbawm | 1037 |
19 | Paul Wolfowitz | 1028 |
20 | Camille Paglia | 1013 |
21 | Francis Fukuyama | 883 |
22 | Jean Baudrillard | 858 |
23 | Slavoj Zizek | 840 |
24 | Daniel Dennett | 832 |
25 | Freeman Dyson | 823 |
26 | Steven Pinker | 812 |
27 | Jeffrey Sachs | 810 |
28 | Samuel Huntington | 805 |
29 | Mario Vargas Llosa | 771 |
30 | Ali al-Sistani | 768 |
31 | EO Wilson | 742 |
32 | Richard Posner | 740 |
33 | Peter Singer | 703 |
34 | Bernard Lewis | 660 |
35 | Fareed Zakaria | 634 |
36 | Gary Becker | 630 |
37 | Michael Ignatieff | 610 |
38 | Chinua Achebe | 585 |
39 | Anthony Giddens | 582 |
40 | Lawrence Lessig | 565 |
41 | Richard Rorty | 562 |
42 | Jagdish Bhagwati | 561 |
43 | Fernando Cardoso | 556 |
44= | JM Coetzee | 548 |
44= | Niall Ferguson | 548 |
46 | Ayaan Hirsi Ali | 546 |
47 | Steven Weinberg | 507 |
48 | Julia Kristeva | 487 |
49 | Germaine Greer | 471 |
50 | Antonio Negri | 452 |
51 | Rem Koolhaas | 429 |
52 | Timothy Garton Ash | 428 |
53 | Martha Nussbaum | 422 |
54 | Orhan Pamuk | 393 |
55 | Clifford Geertz | 388 |
56 | Yusuf al-Qaradawi | 382 |
57 | Henry Louis Gates Jr. | 379 |
58 | Tariq Ramadan | 372 |
59 | Amos Oz | 358 |
60 | Larry Summers | 351 |
61 | Hans Küng | 344 |
62 | Robert Kagan | 339 |
63 | Paul Kennedy | 334 |
64 | Daniel Kahnemann | 312 |
65 | Sari Nusseibeh | 297 |
66 | Wole Soyinka | 296 |
67 | Kemal Dervis | 295 |
68 | Michael Walzer | 279 |
69 | Gao Xingjian | 277 |
70 | Howard Gardner | 273 |
71 | James Lovelock | 268 |
72 | Robert Hughes | 259 |
73 | Ali Mazrui | 251 |
74 | Craig Venter | 244 |
75 | Martin Rees | 242 |
76 | James Q Wilson | 229 |
77 | Robert Putnam | 221 |
78 | Peter Sloterdijk | 217 |
79 | Sergei Karaganov | 194 |
80 | Sunita Narain | 186 |
81 | Alain Finkielkraut | 185 |
82 | Fan Gang | 180 |
83 | Florence Wambugu | 159 |
84 | Gilles Kepel | 156 |
85 | Enrique Krauze | 144 |
86 | Ha Jin | 129 |
87 | Neil Gershenfeld | 120 |
88 | Paul Ekman | 118 |
89 | Jaron Lanier | 117 |
90 | Gordon Conway | 90 |
91 | Pavol Demes | 88 |
92 | Elaine Scarry | 87 |
93 | Robert Cooper | 86 |
94 | Harold Varmus | 85 |
95 | Pramoedya Ananta Toer | 84 |
96 | Zheng Bijian | 76 |
97 | Kenichi Ohmae | 68 |
98= | Wang Jisi | 59 |
98= | Kishore Mahbubani | 59 |
100 | Shintaro Ishihara | 57 |
We asked voters to select a "bonus ball" nomination—a name they believe we should have included on our original longlist. Hundreds of people were chosen—from Bob Dylan to Kofi Annan. Here are the top 20 names
Position | Name | Total votes |
1 | Milton Friedman | 98 |
2 | Stephen Hawking | 81 |
3 | Arundhati Roy | 78 |
4 | Howard Zinn | 72 |
5 | Bill Clinton | 67 |
6 | Joseph Stiglitz | 57 |
7 | Johan Norberg | 48 |
8= | Dalai Lama | 45 |
8= | Thomas Sowell | 45 |
10= | Cornell West | 39 |
10= | Nelson Mandela | 39 |
12 | Gore Vidal | 37 |
13 | Mohammad Khatami | 35 |
14 | John Ralston Saul | 33 |
15= | George Monbiot | 26 |
15= | Judith Butler | 26 |
17 | Victor Davis Hanson | 25 |
18 | Gabriel García Márquez | 24 |
19= | Bono | 23 |
19= | Harold Bloom | 23 |