Who was the greatest American in history? Borlaug, Ford and an open debate

Norman Borlaug, Ford and Rockefeller: the impossible podium of the greatest American

In 1970, an Iowa agronomist named Norman Borlaug received the Nobel Peace Prize for saving a billion people from hunger. Soon after, a history forum got into the most American question possible: who is the greatest American in history? The answer is not unanimous, but the consensus points to the fact that the names that truly changed the world rarely appear in popularity polls.

Borlaug, Ford and Rockefeller: the podium of material influence

The first line of analysis puts Norman Borlaug at the top. His work in the green revolution multiplied agricultural output in countries like India and Pakistan and prevented famines that were considered inevitable. He is trinc by Henry Ford and John D. Rockefeller, two industrialists who, with questionable methods, transformed production and energy on a global scale. The list is rounded out by Clarence Birdseye and Robert Moses, pioneers of frozen food and urban planning, respectively.

Some add George C. Marshall, the architect of the plan that rebuilt Europe, and Philo Farnsworth, the inventor of electronic television, a modern Gutenberg. And there is no shortage of John von Neumann, whose mark on computing and game theory is unquestionable. The list is heterogeneous, but it shares one trait: these are names that rarely come up in bar conversations.

Franklin, the polymath on the banknotes

Another camp champions Benjamin Franklin as the most well-rounded American: scientist, inventor, publisher, diplomat and, so it is said, a double agent. One participant points out that he is the only scientist to have appeared on widely circulated coins and banknotes. His figure embodies the ideal of the Renaissance man applied to the building of a nation.

The provocation: Kim Kardashian and cultural influence

Not everything is consensus. One participant throws out a provocation that, joke though it may sound, has its own logic: Kim Kardashian as the most influential American woman in history, above Marilyn Monroe, Oprah Winfrey or Jacqueline Kennedy. The argument rests on her global impact on the aesthetics, attitude and mindset of the contemporary woman through social media. The figure backing her power: an estimated net worth of two billion dollars. The provocation seeks less to convince than to measure how much cultural influence weighs on the historical scale.

Morgan, the banker who saved the system

The list of names goes on. John Pierpont Morgan controlled the American economy during the Gilded Age and kept banking panics from wrecking the financial system, putting up his own fortune as collateral. He was a son of a bitch, but a fair son of a bitch, according to the description given of him. His figure raises the question of whether the greatest American should be a benefactor or a predator with a sense of order.

Other voices: from Lovecraft to Musk

The range widens: H.P. Lovecraft, Walt Disney, Thomas Edison, Michael Jordan, Michael Jackson and Elon Musk. Also appearing are Thomas Jefferson, Lysander Spooner, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry Thoreau, representatives of the libertarian and transcendentalist traditions. The diversity of candidates reflects that the question has no single answer, but as many as the country has facets.

The unsettling fact: Robert Wadlow, the tallest man

Amid so much historical greatness, one participant brings up Robert Pershing Wadlow, the tallest man in history, at 2.72 meters. The mention serves to bring the debate back down to earth: the greatest American, in the most literal sense, was him. A way of remembering that greatness is measured in many ways.

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In the end, the question remains unanswered. But the tour leaves one idea clear: the names that changed the world the most are not always the most remembered. And that, in a country obsessed with rankings, is almost a provocation.