This is a blog post, not an academic paper with citations. It's about conveying a message: "Here's this new thing I made. You can use it. Here are it's pros and cons."

One of the nice things about Clojure is that it's a lot of great ideas from a lot of great people, packaged up with Rich Hickey's particular brand of digestible design.

Having watched most of Rich's published talks, it's apparent to me that he is quite humble about the fact that none of his ideas are that novel. He simply takes credit for this particular arrangement and takes pride in his design approach. His design sensibilities really resonate with a lot of people, hence Clojure's popularity.

On a personal note, I wish I could give credit to all the giant's whose shoulders I have stood on. However, it's simply not possible to remember all those details. Sometimes, ideas take days, weeks, months, YEARS to bake. Sometimes, someone tells you the solution to the problem, but you don't get it. Then 5 years later, it comes to you in a dream.