Returning to the workaday world from the long Thanksgiving weekend, we need some fun -- distracting but in the spirit of gratitude.
The New Republic has just the ticket, a special centennial anniversary edition, “100 Years, 100 Thinkers: The New Republic Ranks The Minds Who’ve Defined Our Century.” It is highbrow, list-icle fun.
And like all good lists, it’s fun to argue about.
TNR ranks the top five “thinkers” in 20 different fields: Some of them are the classics: Philosophy, Economics, Art, Jurisprudence. And some of them are quirky, with a TNR tilt: Sex, Feminism, Political Journalism, Food and Songwriting.
There’s nothing for Literature, Physics, Poetry, Biology, Political Philosophy or Psychology, but American Civil Rights, Design and Humor make the cut.
Einstein, Heisenberg, Gandhi, Joyce, Yeats, Sartre, Dewey, Weber, Freud, Curie, Hawking, Watson and Crick didn’t cut the mustard; Gloria Steinem, Steve Jobs, Richard Pryor, Alice Waters, Hugh Hefner and Meg Greenfield did.
Enjoy your lunch hour.
[Also by Dick Meyer: Guns everywhere]
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