Snapshot Profiles: Disruptors, Teachers, Collectors & Travellers
Get straight to the heart of the BBC Sounds series with concise bullet-point portraits of each figure’s defining trait and legacy.
Tune in here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/brand/m0026njq
Disruptors
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Socrates – chisels away assumptions with a relentless “Why?”.
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George Washington – steadies young nations by leading with quiet integrity.
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Mary Wollstonecraft – lights the path to equality with her impassioned pen.
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Martin Luther – nails fresh challenges to ossified institutions.
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Malcolm X – forges personal evolution into a catalyst for collective change.
Teachers
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Michael Faraday – shows us that invisible forces (and questions) can move mountains.
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Maimonides – balances reason and faith to navigate complex truths.
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Mary Somerville – charts new intellectual territories when doors are firmly shut.
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Peter Ramus – re-examines structures of knowledge to reveal hidden pathways.
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Diogenes – discards pretence, proving authenticity is the greatest lesson.
Collectors
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Sei Shōnagon – curates courtly life into a pearl-bright pillow-book.
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Denis Diderot – builds an Encyclopédie as a cathedral of shared insight.
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Pamphile – preserves domestic wisdom in an overlooked voice.
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Samuel Johnson – forges meaning by defining the very words we use.
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Charles Darwin – catalogs nature’s wonders to rewrite our place in the world.
Travellers
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The Buddha – journeys inward, teaching that true pilgrimage is the mind’s voyage.
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Jean Rhys – navigates exile to uncover identity’s hidden contours.
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Sir Patrick Manson – crosses continents, pioneering tropical medicine.
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Ida Pfeiffer – defies 19th-century confines to collect global stories.
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Aristotle – blazes the trail of scientific thought on every travelled road.