Societies have developed many mechanisms to honor their most illustrious members. Some get recognized during their lifetimes, through titles such as knighthood or awards like the Nobel Prize. Others get put to rest in special places, such as Arlington National Cemetery or the Pantheon in Paris. Saints are canonized and so are baseball players – in their respective Halls of Fame.

Over the next two chapters, we will study the process of historical canonization by analyzing two long-standing New York institutions: the Hall of Fame for Great Americans in the Bronx and the Baseball Hall of Fame in the tiny village of Cooperstown. Both have held elections for more than 70 years, enough time to observe changes in each member's reputation in the years following selection. These institutions provide a natural laboratory to study how time erodes fame, and the limits to which knowledgeable observers can separate the gold from the dross of history.

The Hall of Fame for Great Americans

New York institutions rise and fall around real estate. The history of the city properly began when Peter Minuit (1580–1638) [3248] bought Manhattan from the Indians on May 24, 1626 for goods worth 60 Dutch guilders. Traditionally converted to $24, it was a steal: likely in more ways than one.

The Hall of Fame for Great Americans also began with a real estate transaction. Toward the end of the nineteenth century, New York University acquired land in the Bronx to serve as a new undergraduate campus.

The first part of this book established the general validity of our ranking methods, and used them to illustrate grand themes and processes of history: canonization in textbooks, evaluating the precision of selection processes, measuring the flow of time, and quantifying changes in the perception of gender.

Now we will reduce our focus to the particular. We rank the significance of the world's historical figures in terms of the different niches they occupy: politicians, scientists, religious leaders, artists, actors, outlaws, and even dentists. It is instructive to see who rises to the top of each individual heap, both to refresh our memory on old historical friends and to make new ones. You have our blessing to skim through any group that you are not interested in, but sneak a peek at the ranking tables before you move on.

Some may question how we decide which figures belong in a particular group. Defining exactly who is an actor, an outlaw, or a dentist turns out to be very difficult to do in a precise way. We used the following methodology. We would start from a roster assembled in some book or Wikipedia category, and then amend the lists based on general knowledge and our sense of the nature of the category. No doubt certain omissions remain, although we believe that we have captured most of the usual suspects.

This first chapter concerns America's political leaders, from our presidents down to the mayors of our greatest cities.