Mary Beard

British classicist at Cambridge who wrote SPQR (a history of ancient Rome), Confronting the Classics, Women and Power, and The Shock of the Ancient — and who became a prominent public intellectual and defender of academic freedom through her Times Literary Supplement blog and media presence.

Made Roman history genuinely relevant to contemporary questions — SPQR's argument that Rome's greatest achievement was its model of gradual, conflicted inclusion (of allies, slaves, conquered peoples into citizenship) made Roman history a mirror for modern debates about immigration, citizenship, and empire.