who said the quote power corrupts absolute power corrupts absolutely
John Dalberg-Acton, 1st Baron Acton He is perhaps best known for the remark in a letter to an Anglican bishop, "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men,..."[4] This idea has been tested in laboratory settings.[5]
Great power Since the end of the World Wars, the term "great power" has been joined by a number of other power classifications. Foremost among these is the concept of the superpower, used to describe those nations with overwhelming power and influence in the rest of the world. It was first coined in 1944 by William T. R. Fox[47] and according to him, there were three superpowers: the British Empire, the United States, and the Soviet Union. But after World War II the British Empire lost its superpower status, leaving the United States and the Soviet Union as the world's superpowers.[nb 2] The term middle power has emerged for those nations which exercise a degree of global influence, but are insufficient to be decisive on international affairs. Regional powers are those whose influence is generally confined to their region of the world.