The atlas / People
The people behind the ideas.
Meet the leaders, thinkers, and activists who shaped political life. Explore their perspectives—and the ideas, places, and people closest to them.
449 profiles
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- Politics
Pol Pot
Leader of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, Pol Pot imposed radical agrarian communism that emptied the cities and abolished property, causing one of the greatest genocides of the 20th century in the name of a peasant utopia.
- Religion
Pope Francis
The first Jesuit and Latin American pope, Francis championed migrants and the poor, criticized unregulated capitalism and the 'throwaway culture' in his encyclical Laudato Si' on the environmental crisis, and promoted greater pastoral decentralization and open dialogue within the Catholic Church.
- Religion
Pope Leo XIII
Pope from 1878 to 1903, Leo XIII founded Catholic social teaching with the encyclical Rerum Novarum, defending a just wage, workers' associations and private property against socialism and liberalism, and revived Thomism.
- Religion
Pope Leo XIV
The first pope born in the United States, elected in 2025 after decades of missionary work in Peru, Leo XIV chose his name in reference to Leo XIII and his social doctrine on workers' rights, champions migrants, and warns of the risks artificial intelligence poses to human dignity and labor.
- Religion
Pope Pius IX
The last Pope-King, Pius IX ruled the Papal States until 1870 in the longest pontificate in history, defined the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, proclaimed papal infallibility at Vatican I, and condemned liberalism in the Syllabus of Errors.
- Philosophy
Pythagoras
A Greek philosopher and community leader in southern Italy, Pythagoras linked mathematics and cosmology to religious discipline. Later accounts connect Pythagoreans to political influence in Magna Graecia, though his own ideas are hard to separate from those of his followers.
- Politics
Qin Shi Huang
King of Qin who unified China in 221 BC and proclaimed himself first emperor, he ruled through Legalism with harsh laws, replaced feudalism with centralized commanderies, standardized script and coinage, burned books and began the Great Wall.
- Intellectual life
Randolph Bourne
An American essayist, Bourne sharply criticized militarism and nationalism, coining the idea that war is the health of the state, and championed a cultural cosmopolitanism open to diversity and freedom.
- Intellectual life
Ray Kurzweil
An American inventor and futurist, Kurzweil popularized transhumanism and the Singularity, predicting the fusion of humans and machines and the radical expansion of human capacities through technology.
- Politics
Recep Tayyip Erdoğan
A Turkish statesman, Erdoğan shifted Turkey toward Islamic, nationalist conservatism, combining presidential centralization, an assertive foreign policy, and the erosion of democratic checks.
- Activism
Renan Santos
A Brazilian businessman and political activist, he founded the Free Brazil Movement (MBL) in 2014 and has chaired the Mission party since 2025 on a platform he sums up as 'Milei in form, Bukele in substance,' running for the Brazilian presidency in 2026.
- Philosophy
René Descartes
A French philosopher and mathematician, father of modern philosophy and creator of analytic geometry, Descartes formulated methodic doubt and mind-body dualism ("I think, therefore I am"). He lived in the tolerant Dutch Republic, avoiding conflict with the Church after Galileo.
- Politics
Reza Pahlavi
Son of Iran's last shah and an exiled opposition figure, Reza Pahlavi advocates a secular democratic transition, free elections and a choice between monarchy and republic. He prioritizes territorial integrity, individual liberties and market reforms; he has never governed Iran.
- Politics
Richard Nixon
US President (1969–1974), Nixon opened relations with China, ended the dollar’s convertibility to gold, created the EPA and the war on drugs, and resigned after the Watergate scandal.
- Intellectual life
Richard Rasmussen
Biologist and TV adventure host, he served as Bolsonaro’s tourism ambassador and ran for Congress in 2026. He champions wildlife breeders, Amazon smallholders and cattle grazing as fire prevention, criticizing environmental enforcement and NGOs.
- Activism
Richard Spencer
An American activist, Spencer popularized the term alt-right and advocates identitarian white nationalism and an ethnically homogeneous state, supremacist positions widely repudiated inside and outside the United States.
- Philosophy
Robert Nozick
An American philosopher, Nozick defended libertarianism and the minimal state in Anarchy, State, and Utopia, arguing that only the protection of individual rights justifies the existence of state power.
- Economics
Roberto Campos
A Brazilian economist and diplomat, Campos served as planning minister under the military regime, created the Central Bank and the housing bank, and became the country's most influential advocate of economic liberalism and privatisation.
- Philosophy
Roger Scruton
A British philosopher, Scruton was one of the great contemporary conservative thinkers, defending tradition, beauty, nation, and institutions as sources of meaning and order against relativism and progressivism.
- Politics
Roman Dmowski
Founder of Polish National Democracy, Dmowski united ethnic nationalism, Catholicism, and sovereignty in a project of a homogeneous nation-state, becoming a central figure of modern Polish nationalism.
- Politics
Romeu Zema
Businessman and governor of Minas Gerais for the Novo party (2019–2026), he ran for president in 2026. He proposes privatizing every state company, leaving BRICS, curbing the Supreme Court, lowering the age of criminal responsibility and banning all abortion.
- Politics
Ron Paul
An American politician, Ron Paul popularized libertarianism in the United States, defending the minimal state, individual freedom, sound money, and a non-interventionist foreign policy against the establishment.
- Politics
Ronald Reagan
An American statesman, Reagan led the modern conservative right, championing tax cuts, free markets, traditional values, firm anti-communism, and expanded military power.
- Politics
Ronaldo Caiado
Orthopedic surgeon, founder of the agribusiness UDR and governor of Goiás (2019–2026), he ran as the PSD's presidential candidate in 2026. He pledges a hard line on criminal gangs, a broad amnesty for January 8 defendants, spending control and protection of rural property.
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