Quantitative analysts (“quants”) are finding new homes in the social and cultural domains. Finance? Hedge funds employing quantitative trading strategies now rule Wall Street, to the extent that more than 80 percent of all buy-sell decisions are made by algorithms, not people. Sports? The best selling book Moneyball detailed how successful major league teams now hire general managers who value statistical analysis above gut instinct – and get to be played by Brad Pitt in the movie version of the story. Politics? Prediction markets and the meta-analysis of polling data work so reliably that it hardly seems necessary to hold the actual election.

In this book, we bring quantitative analysis to bear on ranking and comparing historical reputations. Who's bigger: Washington or Lincoln? Hitler or Napoleon? Picasso or Michelangelo? Charles Dickens or Jane Austen? Did you realize that:

1. • Although Paul Revere (1735–1818) [627] and Betsy Ross (1752–1836) [2430] are well known to all American schoolchildren, they fell into complete obscurity for several generations after their contributions to the American Revolution. Their rediscoveries, completely independent of their actual achievements, tell us much about the capricious forces of history.

2. • Women remain significantly underrepresented in the historical record compared to men. We can prove that women have long required substantially greater achievement levels (analogous to about 4 IQ points in the mean) than men to get equally noted for posterity.