Ronald Reagan - Greatest American???
The BBC reports that Ronald Reagan - yes, the one-time Hollywood man, has been voted the "greatest American" of all time by his fellow citizens. He edged out Abe Lincoln and Martin Luther King Jr to claim top spot, in a poll that placed GW - yup, George W Bush at #6, closely followed by Bill Clinton at 7, and Oprah Winfrey at 9, FDR just about made the top 10.
I know such polls tend to be weighted towards recent events and figures and that the US doesn't have a long recorded history, but can average Americans really be so incredibly myopic or are they just poorly informed?
A comparison with similar European polls is in order:
"A similar exercise held in the UK in 2002, saw wartime Prime Minister Winston Churchill voted the greatest Briton out of a final 10 which included inventor Brunel and scientists Darwin and Newton.
In France, where former President Charles de Gaulle finished first in April 2005, the final list also contained two scientists, Louis Pasteur and Marie Curie.
In a poll held in Germany in 2003, former Chancellor Konrad Adenauer beat Reformation monk Martin Luther and political thinker Karl Marx into second and third place in a top 10 that included Albert Einstein and Johannes Gutenberg."
I know such polls tend to be weighted towards recent events and figures and that the US doesn't have a long recorded history, but can average Americans really be so incredibly myopic or are they just poorly informed?
A comparison with similar European polls is in order:
"A similar exercise held in the UK in 2002, saw wartime Prime Minister Winston Churchill voted the greatest Briton out of a final 10 which included inventor Brunel and scientists Darwin and Newton.
In France, where former President Charles de Gaulle finished first in April 2005, the final list also contained two scientists, Louis Pasteur and Marie Curie.
In a poll held in Germany in 2003, former Chancellor Konrad Adenauer beat Reformation monk Martin Luther and political thinker Karl Marx into second and third place in a top 10 that included Albert Einstein and Johannes Gutenberg."