4 thinkers, books, and ideas connected to this field.
Habsburg ruler who inherited the Austrian empire and spent her reign defending it against Frederick the Great's Prussia — undertaking major administrative and educational reforms while establishing the Theresian academy and central bureaucracy — the mother of 16 children including Marie Antoinette.
General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (1985–91) and last President of the USSR — who launched perestroika (restructuring) and glasnost (openness), ended the Cold War, allowed Eastern European revolutions, and presided over the Soviet Union's dissolution — possibly the most consequential peaceful political choice in modern history.
Chinese official who usurped the Han throne and founded the short-lived Xin dynasty — attempting to implement radical Confucian reforms (land redistribution, abolition of slavery, currency reform) that produced economic chaos and contributed to peasant uprisings that restored the Han dynasty.
British Quaker politician and radical orator — Cobden's partner in the Anti-Corn Law League and one of the greatest parliamentary speakers of the Victorian era.