The 15 Greatest Nobel Peace Prize Laureates of All Time

Prisoners, preachers, farmers and heads of state have all collected the same medal. Deciding which of them earned it most is the hard part.

1

Nelson Mandela

Shared the 1993 prize for negotiating the end of apartheid after twenty-seven years in prison.

2

Martin Luther King Jr.

Won in 1964 at 35, then the youngest laureate, for the nonviolent campaign against segregation.

3

Mother Teresa

Won in 1979 for four decades of work with the destitute and dying in Calcutta.

4

Malala Yousafzai

The youngest laureate ever, awarded in 2014 at 17 for campaigning for girls' education after being shot for it.

5

Theodore Roosevelt

The first American laureate, awarded in 1906 for mediating the end of the Russo-Japanese War.

6

The Dalai Lama

Won in 1989 for pursuing Tibetan autonomy without violence over three decades of exile.

7

Albert Schweitzer

The 1952 laureate, a theologian and organist who spent his life as a doctor in Gabon.

8

Norman Borlaug

The 1970 laureate whose wheat breeding is credited with saving hundreds of millions from famine.

9

Desmond Tutu

The 1984 laureate who used the pulpit against apartheid and later chaired the truth commission.

10

Jimmy Carter

Won in 2002, more than twenty years after leaving office, for decades of mediation and disease eradication.

11

Wangari Maathai

The 2004 laureate whose Green Belt Movement planted tens of millions of trees in Kenya.

12

Fridtjof Nansen

The polar explorer who won in 1922 for organising relief and passports for stateless refugees.

13

Jane Addams

The first American woman to win, in 1931, for settlement-house work and international peace campaigning.

14

Kofi Annan

Shared the 2001 prize with the United Nations for reorienting the organisation around human rights.

15

Elie Wiesel

The 1986 laureate whose testimony as a Holocaust survivor became a lifelong argument against indifference.