I want to be an expert in the 50 most important people who ever lived by next year! Can you help? See inside...
January 7, 2010 9:39 PM   Subscribe

I want to be knowledgeable in many things and I want to make specific goals to accomplish that by studying 50 people who mattered over the course of a year - a week dedicated to each giant!

So, I was watching a video of Charlie Munger (of Birkshire Hathaway fame) talking about life lessons at a college graduation. One of the things he recommended to those seeking success in life was getting a solid grasp of the fundamentals of the major disciplines.

The idea: Pick 50 people who were recognized leaders in their fields and study each of them in depth for a week. At the end of the year one would have a well rounded knowledge of the major ideas and personalities that shape our world.

Ideally one would pick a list of books, articles, audio and video interviews and read/watch/listen to them in spare time or travel time etc.

Think of it as a marathon of the mind!

If you tried something like this, what obstacles did you encounter how did you overcome them?

If this idea appeals to you, perhaps you want to partner up! I think something like this is either to do with a partner.

How would one go about compiling such a list of 50 great men?

Thanks, friends.
posted by seatofmypants to Education (7 answers total) 19 users marked this as a favorite
 
What a good idea. Couple of suggestions and then names:

1. Start a blog or something to record what you read and reflect on each of the individuals. Writing will force you to organize your thoughts, keep you on track and create something you can share with others.

2. Are you deliberately excluding women or are you inaccurately using "great men" to mean "great people"? Because clearly you should also include women.

3. It'd be helpful if you had a particular field or sector or even theme to this. Business. Science. Politics. Blondes. Lefties. Anything to give it some structure.

4. Top of the head suggestions:

- George Soros
- Kurt Vonnegut
- Vaclav Havel
- Shakespeare
- Thomas Jefferson
- Woodrow Wilson
- Sam Walton
- Ahng Sung Su Kyi
- Corzine Aquino
-
posted by RandlePatrickMcMurphy at 9:59 PM on January 7, 2010


Santiago Ramon Cajal

What do you mean by "great?"

This idea does not appeal to me. How many people are great because they studied "great people" (there are probably lots; but how many people tried to emulate 'great people' and .... weren't?)

I'm not great.

The greatest list, really, needs some definition. For some people, Ronald Reagan is a "Great Man." What are some of your 'great men?'
posted by porpoise at 10:01 PM on January 7, 2010


Oops. sorry, you do have a list of great men, and a list that I can't disagree with.

Best of luck!
posted by porpoise at 10:02 PM on January 7, 2010


How many people are great because they studied "great people"

This would be an interesting idea—a timeline of great men who've obviously taken something from previous great men. I mean, you would have to stay strictly within a subject and probably within a sub-topic.

Wait a minute...are you doing 50 men in science, in American politics, in world travel, and so on? That could take ten thousand years.
posted by lhude sing cuccu at 10:09 PM on January 7, 2010


A list of the 50 most important people is going to be subjective- important to who, and for what? I would want some sort of procedure to help guide my selection process.

For example, I might rely on a map of published journal articles (like this or this) to identify clusters of human knowledge, then find out who the most important people were in each of those clusters.

This should help you find people that discovered big things/ideas. Hopefully you'll have some unallocated slots after that. Then it's time to start combing through history to find out who did big things. The most visible figures in history were the heads of state/ military commanders that shaped the geographic boundaries that we have today, but an alternative focus is to think about the basic things that make up the human condition and see who affected those things most-

Food/Water
Clothing/Shelter
Money/Commerce
Entertainment
Government's relation to its community
Medicine
Sex/ related mores/ gender relations

All of these things have changed over time. Maybe there are other basic nigh-universal variables not on this list yet that should be, but you get the idea. Who changed these aspects of human existence, and how?
posted by a snickering nuthatch at 10:34 PM on January 7, 2010 [2 favorites]


If you tried something like this, what obstacles did you encounter how did you overcome them?

I tend to do something like this, but don't limit it to people - any topic is fair game. I take a year to sort it all out and then, having prepared my subjects and materials, I can focus on them throughout the next year. I do it in two week cycles (sometimes more, sometimes less) This way, I have my reading lists and bibliographies/references handy and don't have to spend two or three days sifting through all of the information.

This year it includes 15 people, two philosophies, a handful of art techniques, two time periods, two languages (of course these will carry throughout the year), and some misc. historical and personal development.

I would warn you about derails, though. There are some things that are so fascinating that it is easy to get sideswiped. This happens to me with biographies all the time: I read about someone, then decide that I want to understand more about the period in some way, then I veer off on a tangent that then brings me to something or someone else not related directly, then I discover another connection that... I have to account for my tendency to do it and adjust accordingly.

Life also gets in the way - I have to focus. Audiobooks help, but the retention just isn't there for me aurally, so it takes longer than it would if I were reading (this is fine because it balances out the time I use for it - mindless stuff: bus rides, manual labor, &c, but is frustrating nonetheless.)

I would say get rid of the TV, and I even went so far as to get rid of flash on the computer (Youtube and random vids are poison for this kind of focus). if I want to watch a dvd about something, I do it on my computer's player. You may have more discipline than I do, so take that with a grain of salt. I found that not having a screen to lull me opened up hours every week.

When I am wrapped up in learning something, I always think of the Quentin Crisp quote: "This polishing process makes your life so formal that by comparison the life of a Trappist monk is an orgy." He was writing about lifestyle and personal panache, but it holds true for this kind of thing as well.

I can say that the past five years have been really interesting - I have experienced a growth I wouldn't have thought possible when I started.
posted by Tchad at 11:27 PM on January 7, 2010 [4 favorites]


The winnowing or filtering process is important as well. What 50 people? What criteria to select the 50?

I'll make an admission here that I don't often talk about openly, but it's something that truly works for me: the use of what librarians and the publishing world broadly call "juvenile biographies." Many of these books, by the better educational publishers, are quite good at giving you a good overview or survey of a life. You get more than a good encyclopedia entry, less than a mass market biography, but just right for finding out who you want to know more about.

I remember reading juvenile biographies way back when by Jules Archer that had a great impact on me, and led me on to further study of some fascinating people. I just never stopped with this method and I'm wayyyy past high school. Seriously though, these usually shortish books can be perfect tools to help you decide who you really want to delve into more deeply - at a serious level and with all the time and commitment that entails. At the least, you'll learn a little about a lot of people - in the pursuit of learning a lot about fewer people.

At any rate, your plan sounds like a great journey in learning. Good luck!
posted by Gerard Sorme at 1:38 AM on January 8, 2010 [1 favorite]


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