Politics

Prospect's Public Intellectual of 2008 - who just missed out?

December 11, 2008
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We just put the Christmas edition of the magazine to bed, at 3am on Wednesday morning. If you join up for our Facebook group you can see the new cover, and get an overview of the contents. If you aren't on Facebook, like David Goodhart, our hold-out editor, I'll put it up here in a day or two. The magazine, meanwhile, arrives at a train station near you in the middle of next week.

Personally, I'm most excited about the results of our public intellectual of 2008 poll. This is different from our previous public vote poll, run with Foreign Policy, to find the greatest living public intellectual. This one is just about the figure who did best in 2008 - and is picked by us, and a team of all-star judges. Thanks to any of you who threw names into the hat for consideration, when we announced it here on First Drafts a month or so ago.

I can't put the winner on here just yet, but will put the shortlist up shortly. In the meantime, below, are the people who just missed out on the top 10 - those we liked a lot, but didn't make the cut. More on who actually won in due course - along with the judges' decisions, and the eventual winner. If this lot didn't win, who would you have given it to? And what do you make of this longlist - just the same old group of old white English-speaking men? Click the more button to see the list.......

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-Public Intellectual of 2008 -

** the ones who just missed out on our top 10 **

Ben Bernanke Ingrid Betancourt Paul Collier Niall Ferguson Thomas Friedman Gary Kasparov Doris Kearns Goodwin Naomi Klein Paul Krugman Bernard Henri Levi

Lawrence Lessig Toni Morrison Nassim Nicholas Taleb Barack Obama Louis Moreno Ocampo VS Ramachandran Robert Shiller Hu Shuli Polly Toynbee Adair Turner Martin Wolf

Paul Woolley

Muhammad Yunus Fareed Zakaria