1.
INTRODUCTION:
The
Nobel Prize has existed for 117 years. In that time, a total of 916
prizes have been awarded to individuals and organizations, with some receiving
the Nobel Prize more than once.
In this article I examine the national, ethnic and gender composition of the laureates. I examine TRENDS over time, and I show how the allocation of Nobel awards reflects the history and the evolution of the world over the past 117 years.
This article is not an exercise in nationalism or chauvinism. To the contrary, you’ll see that there is probably no more international population on the planet than the body of Nobel laureates. But to demonstrate this, it is necessary to identify each laureate’s background. This is the first objective of this article. A second, and related, objective is to demonstrate the changing composition of this population and to show that the trends over time reflect the world’s geopolitical and cultural evolution.
The single most important finding is this: From the 1920s onward, there has been an enormous outflow of brain power from Germanic and other parts of Europe to North America. This was largely caused by the rise of National Socialism and Fascism, and a huge proportion of the Nobel laureates who were expatriates and refugees were Jewish.
Additionally,
I trace the gradual diversification of the Nobel Prize from a largely
Euro-centric phenomenon to a worldwide one, and I examine the evolving
gender distribution of awards.
Finally,
I provide samples of illustrious individuals and organizations who have
received Nobel prizes.
2.
THE OVERALL DISTRIBUTION, AND TRENDS:
The
most striking differences between the pre-
and post-World War Two eras are shown in table One:
Table
One:Comparison of Number of Nobel Prizes
Awarded
Before and Since World War Two, by Country and by Region
Before and Since World War Two, by Country and by Region
Country or Area
|
1901-2017
Number
|
1901-2017
%
|
1901-1945
Number
|
1901-1945
%
|
1946-2017
Number
|
1946-2017
%
|
world
|
916
|
221
|
695
|
|||
Germany
|
92
|
10%
|
44
|
20%
|
48
|
6.9%
|
Germany-Austro-Hungary
|
121
|
13%
|
57
|
26%
|
64
|
9%
|
United
States
|
290
|
32%
|
29
|
13.1%
|
261
|
38%
|
North
America
|
307
|
34%
|
30
|
13.5%
|
277
|
40%
|
Europe
|
446
|
49%
|
178
|
81%
|
268
|
38.5%
|
Japan
|
25
|
2.7%
|
0
|
0%
|
25
|
4%
|
Emerging
World
|
64
|
7%
|
4
|
1.8%
|
59
|
8.5%
|
Table
One shows the sharp decline in Europe’s share of Nobel prizes - from 81% up to
World War Two, to 38.5% of all awards since then.
Much of Europe’s dominance prior to World War Two was due to that of German-Austrian Europe.
Since World War Two, it has been
North America, particularly the United States, which has dominated the Nobel
Prize, its share of awards rising
from 13.5% to 40%.
Furthermore, there has been a five-fold increase in the percentage of prizes awarded to laureates of the Emerging World - (Africa, Latin America and Asia).
3. THE “ONE HUNDRED AND
TWENTY-SIX:”
One overwhelming factor accounts for most of the shift from a Germany-dominated world of science to one dominated by the United States: From the 1930s onward, there occurred an immense brain drain from the former to the latter. It is impossible to separate the evolution of the Nobel Prize from the flight of many dozens of European intellectuals and scientists from National Socialism and Fascism, and later from Communism. These migrants were largely but not exclusively Jewish. The US, of course, became the primary beneficiary of this massive brain transfer.
I counted 126 people whom I call the
“multinationals” - that is, people who migrated from their country of
origin and who have therefore a multiple
national identity: 14% of the total number of Nobel laureates.
Of these 126 “multinationals:”
45 moved to a country OTHER than the
United States
14 moved to America and were counted
as Americans
67 moved to America but were NOT
counted as Americans
Thus, by far the largest number of
“multinationals” - 81 altogether -
are “hyphenated Americans:”
(German-Americans, Italian-Americans, Polish-Americans, etc.). However, I
classified only 14 of these as “American” Nobel laureates (for example
Canadian-born Saul Bellow, 1976 Nobel Prize), and the remaining 67 as belonging
to another nationality, generally their nationality at birth.
Classifying the national identities
of the 126 multinationals was a bit of a challenge: What nationality does one
assign to Einstein, who was German-born, lived in Switzerland and ended up in
the US? Or Marie Curie, Polish-born but French throughout her scientific
training and career?
I myself, while no Nobel laureate, can attest to the complexity of national identity, as I was born in Hungary, raised in France and in Holland, and ended up a US citizen. Such people are truly world citizens, but unfortunately, such a legal status does not (yet) exist. In footnote 1, I explain how I assigned national identities to the 126 multinational Nobel laureates.
Out of the list of 126
multinational laureates, 67 were “hyphenated Americans” whom I
nevertheless did NOT classify as Americans. For example:
1.
Albert Einstein, 1921 Nobel - listed as German
2.
Enrico Fermi, 1938 Nobel -
listed as Italian
3.
Wolfgang Pauli, 1945 Nobel -
listed as Austrian
4.
Eugene Wigner, 1963 Nobel - listed
as Hungarian
5.
Elie Wiesel, 1986 Nobel - listed
as Romanian
Many of these 67 hyphenated-Americans could have plausibly
been classified as American Nobel laureates. Had I done this with all 67 of
them, the total number of American laureates would rise to 357 or 39% of the
total number of awards, or 328 (= 47%)
since World War Two!
The remaining 45 multi-nationals who
were NOT hyphenated-Americans were scientists and intellectuals who fled or
migrated to other largely western democracies
such as the United Kingdom, France, Switzerland, and Canada.
For example:
1.Marie Curie,Two times Nobel laureate! 1905 and 1911 - Polish-French
1.Marie Curie,Two times Nobel laureate! 1905 and 1911 - Polish-French
2.
Albert Schweitzer, 1952 Nobel - French-German
3.Friedrich
von Hayek, 1974 Nobel - Austrian-British
4.
Mother Theresa, 1979 Nobel - Albanian-Indian
5.
V. S. Naipaul, 2001 Nobel - Trinidad-British
What ALL 126 multi-nationals have in
common is that they migrated from their country of birth to another country.
I then addressed the following three
questions:
1.
Which laureates were REFUGEES, in other words FLED for their survival,
and which ones were merely emigrants, or what I call “EXPATRIATES”?
2. What were these multinationals’
countries of ORIGIN?
3. What were their DESTINATION
countries?
Question #1: How many of the
multinationals were refugees, and how many were just emigrants?
33 were refugees
93 were expatriates, in other words emigrants
but not refugees.
Question #2: What were the
countries from which the multinationals were fleeing, or just emigrating?
Table
Two:
Country
of Origin of the 33 Nobel Laureates Who Were Refugees
National
Origins of Refugees
|
Number
|
%
|
Germany
|
9
|
27%
|
Russia
|
8
|
24%
|
Italy
|
4
|
12%
|
Poland
|
4
|
12%
|
Austria
|
3
|
10%
|
Hungary
|
3
|
10%
|
Bulgaria
|
1
|
3%
|
Romania
|
1
|
3%
|
Total
|
33
|
100%
|
Table
Three:
Country
of Origin of All 126 Multinational Nobel
Laureates.
National
Origins of all 126 Multinational Nobel Laureates
|
Number
|
%
|
Germany
|
22
|
17.5%
|
Russia
|
12
|
10%
|
Austria
|
10
|
8%
|
United
Kingdom
|
8
|
6%
|
Poland
|
7
|
5.5%
|
Canada
|
7
|
5.5%
|
Australia
|
6
|
5%
|
China
|
5
|
4%
|
Italy
|
5
|
4%
|
New Zealand, Holland, S. Africa, Japan,
India, Hungary each 3
|
18
|
2%
each
|
Luxembourg,
Croatia, Czech Rep., Turkey, Israel, each 2
|
10
|
1.5%
each
|
Ukraine,
Switz., Spain, Norway, US., Albania, Venezuela, Lithuania, France, Egypt,
Trinidad, Cyprus, Sweden, Ireland, Bulgaria, Romania each 1
|
16
|
.9%
each
|
Total
|
126
|
100%
|
What Tables Two and Three show is
that the great losers are Germany, the former
Austro-Hungarian Empire, the
former Soviet Union and Fascist Italy: Altogether, these countries account for
68 of the multinationals, or 54%.
Question #3: What were the
multinationals’ destination countries?
As mentioned earlier, of the 126
multinational laureates, 81 moved to America and 45 moved to other countries.
Table
Four:
Country
of Destinaton of 33 Nobel Laureates who
were Refugees.
Countries
|
Number
|
%
|
USA
|
24
|
73%
|
United
Kingdom
|
3
|
9%
|
Germany
|
2
|
6%
|
France,
Belgium, Canada and Israel, 1 each
|
4
|
3%
each
|
Total
|
33
|
100%
|
As Table Four indicates, the vast
majority (73%) of the Nobel laureates who were refugees went to the United
States. Of the 24 refugees who moved to America, 18 were Jews escaping the Holocaust, 5 were
escaping communism, and 1 fled for
another reason.
Table
Five:
Country
of Destinaton of All 126 Multinational
Nobel Laureates
Countries
|
Refugees
|
Other
|
Total
number
|
%
|
United
States
|
24
|
57
|
81
|
64%
|
United
Kingdom
|
3
|
16
|
19
|
15%
|
France
|
1
|
4
|
5
|
4%
|
Switzerland
|
0
|
4
|
4
|
3%
|
Canada
|
1
|
2
|
3
|
2.3%
|
Australia
|
0
|
3
|
3
|
2.3%
|
Israel
|
1
|
1
|
2
|
1.6%
|
Austria
|
0
|
2
|
2
|
1.65
|
Germany
|
2
|
0
|
2
|
1.6%
|
Belgium
|
1
|
0
|
1
|
.8%
|
Hungary,
Sweden, Japan, India
|
0
|
1
each
|
1
|
.8%
|
Total
|
33
|
93
|
126
|
The largest single contingent of
multi-nationals consists of Jews fleeing
Nazism, in other words fleeing primarily from Germany and Austria.
In addition, there were also non-Jews fleeing Nazism, and there were
refugees fleeing Fascism from elsewhere
(e.g. Italy, as in the case of Enrico Fermi, whose wife was Jewish). Finally,
there were also laureates fleeing from
Communism and other forms of totalitarianism.
America was the primary beneficiary of this gigantic brain drain. So were, to a lesser extent, the United Kingdom, France and some other countries. What a gift! This is what gave the US unmatched scientific and industrial supremacy. This is what enabled America to be the first to develop nuclear weapons, to win World War Two and to win the space race. Had Germany kept its (Jewish) scientists such as Einstein, it might have won the war. Both that country and the Soviet Union could have won the space race, had America not benefitted from the brain transfer - which, incidentally, also included non-Jewish emigrés and Nazi sympathizers such as Werner von Braun.
t is difficult to think of a more imbecilic move than government’s current efforts to impede immigration into the United States. Nothing has benefitted this country more than the free flow of immigration, and nothing will weaken the country more than limiting that flow. Contrary to the erroneous belief that immigrants are a burden, in truth they are the greatest source of strength, vitality, scientific progress and future wealth. Without immigrants, America would not have Google and Apple; it would have nothing.
As to the huge Jewish presence on these lists: I did not systematically jot down whether any laureate was Jewish or not, but I have a hunch that half of these Nobel laureates were. I will not dwell on a subject which could be “radioactive” (“why are there so many geniuses among Jews ?”) Suffice it to say that Jewish culture has, like no other culture, emphasized education for five thousand years.
4. OTHER TRENDS
I then asked three additional questions:
4. Did the share of awards going to Russia - transformed into the Soviet Union - rise after World War Two?
5. Did the Nobel Prize become less
Euro-centric over time?
6. Has the share awarded to women increased?
Question #4: Did Russia/the Soviet Union gain an increasing
number of Nobel Prizes?
Through the end of World War Two, Russia garnered 3 awards (1.4%
of the total). Since then, it has received 22 awards (3.3%). Thus, Russia has
more than doubled its share, even though that share remains relatively low.
Question #5: Has the Nobel Prize
become less Euro-centric?
Table
Six:
Comparison
of Number of Nobel Prizes Awarded Before and Since World War Two, by Region
Region
|
1901-2017
Number
|
1901-2017
%
|
1901-1945
Number
|
1901-1045
%
|
1946-2017
Number
|
1946-2017
%
|
World: 64 countries + International Organizations
|
916
|
100%
|
221
|
100%
|
695
|
100%
|
Europe:
29 countries
|
446
|
49%
|
178
|
81%
|
268
|
38.5%
|
North
America: 2 countries
|
307
|
34%
|
30
|
13.5%
|
277
|
40%
|
Japan
|
25
|
2.7%
|
0
|
0%
|
25
|
4%
|
Russia
|
25
|
2.7%
|
3
|
1.5%
|
22
|
3.2%
|
Australia
|
6
|
.7%
|
1
|
.5%
|
5
|
.7%
|
Israel
|
11
|
1.2%
|
0
|
0%
|
11
|
1.6%
|
Emerging World : 29 countries
|
64
|
7%
|
4
|
1.8%
|
60
|
8.6%
|
International
Organizations
|
22
|
2.4%
|
4
|
1.8%
|
18
|
2.6%
|
China
|
6
|
.7%
|
0
|
0%
|
6
|
.9%
|
Africa
|
20
|
2.2%
|
0
|
0%
|
20
|
2.9%
|
Latin
America: 7 countries
|
16
|
1.7%
|
2
|
.9%
|
14
|
2%
|
South
Asia, incl. India
|
9
|
1%
|
2
|
.9%
|
7
|
1%
|
Middle
East: 4 countries
|
5
|
.5%
|
0
|
0%
|
5
|
.7%
|
Table Six shows the steep decline of
Europe’s share: from 81% prior to World War Two to 38% since then.
Conversely, North America’s share has tripled, from 13.5% to 40%.
As we saw in Table One, the European dominance in the past was largely a German-Austro-Hungarian dominance. One might conjecture that - in addition to Germanic science’s objective excellence - the Nobel organization might have been temperamentally more attuned to Germanic culture. After all, Nobel is a Scandinavian institution.
Be that as it may, Table Six shows that the Nobel organization has made an effort and strides to diversify the awards. The share of awards going to emerging countries has quintupled. Africa and Latin America have gained fairly significantly. If this has caused the Nobel organization to politicize its decisions to some extent, in an effort to nudge the world into a more accepting and peaceful direction, that’s fine.
The shares of China, India and the Middle East remain mediocre. Of course, Japan’s scientific and economic rise is a well-known story.
Question #6: Has the share
awarded to women increased?
Table
Seven:
Has
the Number of Nobel Prizes Awarded to Women Increased over Time?
Epoch
|
Number
of Awards to Women
|
Percentage
of total
|
1901-2017
|
46
out of 916
|
5%
|
1901-1945
|
10
out of 221
|
4.5%
|
1946-2017
|
36
out of 695
|
5.2%
|
21st
century
|
17
out of 204
|
8.3%
|
Table Seven reveals that the
percentage of awards granted to women
after World War Two was not significantly greater than prior to World War Two.
However, during the 21st century, the proportion finally began to
rise. It is now nearly double the rate prior to World War Two.
Here are a few of the most eminent female laureates:
1903
and 1911: Marie Curie (Poland/France)
1909:
Selma Lagerlof (Sweden)
1931:
Jane Addams (US)
1935:
Irene Curie (Marie’s Daughter) (France)
1938:
Pearl Buck (US)
1979:
Mother Teresa (Albania)
1982:
Alva Myrdal (Sweden)
1993:
Toni Morrison(US)
Here is a list of some additional
eminent laureates who have not yet been
mentioned in this article:
1901:
Wilhelm Röntgen (Germany)
1904:Ivan
Pavlov (Russia)
1907:
Rudyard Kipling (Britain)
1909:
Guglielmo Marconi (Italy)
1918:
Max Planck (Germany)
1920:
Knut Hamsun (Norway)
1922:
Niels Bohr (Denmark)
1923:
William Butler Yeats (Ireland)
1925:
George Bernard Shaw (Britain)
1927:
Henri Bergson (France)
1929:
Thomas Mann (Germany)
1930:Sinclair
Lewis (US)
1936)
Eugene O’Neill (US)
1946:
Herman Hesse (Germany)
1947:
André Gide (France)
1947:
T. S. Eliot (US)
1949:
William Faulkner (US)
1950:
Bertrand Russell (Britain)
1954:
Linus Pauling (US)
1954:Ernest
Hemingway (US)
1956:
William Shockley (US)
1957:Albert
Camus (France)
1962:
John Steinbeck (US)
1964:
Martin Luther King (US)
19969:
Samuel Beckett (Ireland)
1970:
Alexander Solzhenitsyn (Russia)
1997:
Robert Merton (US)
2008:
Paul Krugman (US)
2016:
Bob Dylan (US)
...Also, Heads of States and other statesmen:
US
Presidents:
1906:Theodore
. Roosevelt
1919:
Woodrow Wilson
2002:
Jimmy Carter
2009:
Barack Obama
Other
Statesmen:
1926
Aristide Briand (France)
1926:
Gustav Stresemann (Germany)
1950:
Ralph Bunche (US)
1953:
Winston Churchill (Britain)
1953:
George Marshall (US)
1961:
Dag Hammarskjöld (Sweden)
1971:
Willy Brandt (Germany)
1973
Henry Kissinger (US)
1978;
Anwar Sadat (Egypt)
1978:
Menachem Begin (Israel)
1983:
Lech Walesa (Poland)
1984:
Desmond Tutu (South Africa)
1989:
Dalai Lama (Tibet)
1990:
Mikhail Gorbachev (Russia)
1991:
Aung San Suu Kyi (Myanmar)
1993:
Nelson Mandela (South Africa)
1993:
F. W. De Klerk (South Africa)
1994:
Yasser Arafat (Palestine)
1994:
Shimon Peres (Israel)
1994:
Yitzhak Rabin (Israel)
2000:
Kim Dae-jung (South Korea)
2001:
Kofi Annan (Ghana)
2007 Al Gore (US)
And finally, some of the major
international organizations that received the Nobel, in most cases the Peace
Prize:
1917,
1944, 1963: International Red Cross
1954,
1981: UN Refugees High Commissioner
1963:
League of Red Cross and Red Crescent
1965:
UNICEF
1977:
Amnesty International
1985:
Int’l physicians against Nuclear War
1988:
UN Peace-Keeping Forces
1999:
Medecins Sans Frontières (France)
2001:
United Nations
2012:
The European Union
5. CONCLUSION:
Thus, the central theme in the
history of the Nobel prize has been a massive “brain transfer” from Europe to
America.
Prior
to World War Two, the epicenter of scientific and cultural achievement, as
expressed by the percentage of Nobel
laureates, was Europe, especially Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
Since then, it has been North America, particularly the United States. The main reason for this was
the great stream of Jewish and other refugees fleeing Nazism, plus the
migration of other intellectuals. Thus, Germany and other European countries
were the great losers, and America has been the prime beneficiary of this
migratory talent, as a result of its open-door policy towards refugees and
other immigrants.
This indicates that the present administration’s move to impede immigration is short-sighted. Far from being costly and burdensome, immigration’s net effect to the United States has been beneficial. It has been the country’s greatest source of strength, vitality, scientific progress and future wealth. It is because of this brain drain from (largely Germanic) Europe that the US was first to develop nuclear technology, and won World War Two and the space race. Had Germany kept all its (Jewish and other) scientists (such as Albert Einstein), it might have won the war.
The Nobel Prize has become much more diverse in other ways as well: Prior to World War Two, the overwhelming percentage of awards were granted to Europeans, whereas since then the emerging world’s share has increased fivefold. Also, the percentage of female laureates in the 21st century is nearly double what it was prior to World War Two.
Footnote 1:
The national identities of the 126 “multinational” Nobel
laureates were determined as follows:
1. First, I followed the encyclopedia’s
national identification.
2.
Second, when this was not possible, I used what I call the “Einstein
model:” Einstein was born in Germany, he lived in Switzerland, and he migrated
to the US. In view of his background, his professional and university training
and where he spent his formative years, I classified him as a German. This is
the logic which I used in the majority of cases.
3. When a laureate was largely trained in
the country TO which he or she migrated,
I tended to assign her that country’s nationality. For example, I classified
Marie Curie as French.
4. In
addition, I wanted some small countries such as Luxembourg and Croatia to be
represented, so in a few cases, I arbitrarily chose that nationality, when it
was one of a laureate’s multiple nationalities.
5.
Some laureates’ national identities were compelling, as they were iconic
figures in a national context. For example, I classified Saul Below as an American, even though he was
born in Canada.
6. Laureates who were mere infants when they
left their country of birth were often NOT classified as belonging to their
nationality of birth.
7. Laureates listed as Scottish, Welsh
and from Ulster were classified as
British.
© Tom Kando 2018;All Rights Reserved
