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The Most Famous

HISTORIANS from Austria

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This page contains a list of the greatest Austrian Historians. The pantheon dataset contains 339 Historians, 8 of which were born in Austria. This makes Austria the birth place of the 11th most number of Historians behind Greece and Egypt.

Top 8

The following people are considered by Pantheon to be the most legendary Austrian Historians of all time. This list of famous Austrian Historians is sorted by HPI (Historical Popularity Index), a metric that aggregates information on a biography’s online popularity.

Photo of Ernst Gombrich

1. Ernst Gombrich (1909 - 2001)

With an HPI of 65.66, Ernst Gombrich is the most famous Austrian Historian.  His biography has been translated into 35 different languages on wikipedia.

Sir Ernst Hans Josef Gombrich (; German: [ˈgɔmbʁɪç]; 30 March 1909 – 3 November 2001) was an Austrian-born art historian who, after settling in England in 1936, became a naturalised British citizen in 1947 and spent most of his working life in the United Kingdom. Gombrich was the author of many works of cultural history and art history, most notably The Story of Art, a book widely regarded as one of the most accessible introductions to the visual arts, and Art and Illusion, a major work in the psychology of perception that influenced thinkers as diverse as Carlo Ginzburg, Nelson Goodman, Umberto Eco, and Thomas Kuhn.

Photo of Alois Riegl

2. Alois Riegl (1858 - 1905)

With an HPI of 59.12, Alois Riegl is the 2nd most famous Austrian Historian.  His biography has been translated into 19 different languages.

Alois Riegl (14 January 1858, Linz – 17 June 1905, Vienna) was an Austrian art historian, and is considered a member of the Vienna School of Art History. He was one of the major figures in the establishment of art history as a self-sufficient academic discipline, and one of the most influential practitioners of formalism.

Photo of Shlomo Sand

3. Shlomo Sand (1946 - )

With an HPI of 53.71, Shlomo Sand is the 3rd most famous Austrian Historian.  His biography has been translated into 20 different languages.

Shlomo Sand (pronounced Zand; Hebrew: שלמה זנד; born 10 September 1946) is an Israeli Emeritus Professor of History at Tel Aviv University.

Photo of Egon Friedell

4. Egon Friedell (1878 - 1938)

With an HPI of 51.13, Egon Friedell is the 4th most famous Austrian Historian.  His biography has been translated into 23 different languages.

Egon Friedell (born Egon Friedmann; 21 January 1878, in Vienna – 16 March 1938, in Vienna) was a prominent Austrian cultural historian, playwright, actor and Kabarett performer, journalist and theatre critic. Friedell has been described as a polymath. Before 1916, he was also known by his pen name Egon Friedländer.

Photo of Gerda Lerner

5. Gerda Lerner (1920 - 2013)

With an HPI of 49.48, Gerda Lerner is the 5th most famous Austrian Historian.  Her biography has been translated into 21 different languages.

Gerda Hedwig Lerner (née Kronstein; April 30, 1920 – January 2, 2013) was an Austrian-born American historian and woman's history author. In addition to her numerous scholarly publications, she wrote poetry, fiction, theatre pieces, screenplays, and an autobiography. She served as president of the Organization of American Historians from 1980 to 1981. In 1980, she was appointed Robinson Edwards Professor of History at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she taught until retiring in 1991.Lerner was one of the founders of the academic field of women's history. In 1963, while still an undergraduate at the New School for Social Research, she taught "Great Women in American History", which is considered to be the first regular college course on women's history offered anywhere.She taught at Long Island University from 1965 to 1967. She played a key role in the development of women's history curricula and was involved in the development of degree programs in women's history at Sarah Lawrence College (where she taught from 1968 to 1979 and established the nation's first master's degree program in women's history) and at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she launched the first Ph.D. program in women's history. She also worked at Duke University and Columbia University, where she was a co-founder of the Seminar on Women.

Photo of İlber Ortaylı

6. İlber Ortaylı (1947 - )

With an HPI of 49.39, İlber Ortaylı is the 6th most famous Austrian Historian.  His biography has been translated into 20 different languages.

İlber Ortaylı (Turkish: [ˈilbæɾ oɾˈtajɫɯ]; born 21 May 1947) is a Turkish historian and professor of history of Crimean Tatar origin at the MEF University, Galatasaray University in Istanbul and at Bilkent University in Ankara. In 2005, he was appointed as the director of the Topkapı Museum in Istanbul, until he retired in 2012.

Photo of Riane Eisler

7. Riane Eisler (1931 - )

With an HPI of 46.98, Riane Eisler is the 7th most famous Austrian Historian.  Her biography has been translated into 15 different languages.

Riane Tennenhaus Eisler (born July 22, 1931) is an Austrian-born American systems scientist and author who writes about the effect of gender politics historically on society. She is most known for her 1987 book The Chalice and the Blade, in which she coined the terms "partnership" and "dominator".

Photo of Andreas Maislinger

8. Andreas Maislinger (1955 - )

With an HPI of 39.83, Andreas Maislinger is the 8th most famous Austrian Historian.  His biography has been translated into 20 different languages.

Andreas Maislinger (born 26 February 1955 in St. Georgen near Salzburg, Austria) is an Austrian historian and political scientist and founder and former chairman of the Austrian Service Abroad. He also is the founder of the Austrian Holocaust Memorial Award, the Braunau Contemporary History Days and the inventor of the idea of the House of Responsibility.

Pantheon has 8 people classified as historians born between 1858 and 1955. Of these 8, 4 (50.00%) of them are still alive today. The most famous living historians include Shlomo Sand, İlber Ortaylı, and Riane Eisler. The most famous deceased historians include Ernst Gombrich, Alois Riegl, and Egon Friedell. As of April 2022, 1 new historians have been added to Pantheon including Riane Eisler.

Living Historians

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Deceased Historians

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Newly Added Historians (2022)

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Which Historians were alive at the same time? This visualization shows the lifespans of the 4 most globally memorable Historians since 1700.