The American Conservative
It is characteristic for conservative historian Niall Ferguson to have produced an exceptional history during a pandemic. Doom: The Politics of Catastrophe is a sweeping chronicle of global disasters large and small from the dawn of recorded history to the end of 2020; a detailed account not only of previous pandemics, but an embryonic analysis of the moment we are currently living through and “a diary of the plague half year.” For those seeking to ground themselves in historical context after the topsy-turvy events of the past year, Ferguson’s latest offering will prove invaluable. More
Niall Ferguson discusses his latest book on BookTV this weekend. Watch
I’ve contemplated it long before Neil did.
I’ve been taking action. Are you?
I look forward to reading this book, when my local library system acquires a copy.
I liked what he had to say about the information age. We were promised networking computers would make us faster, smarter, stronger. We’re instead more vulnerable, more polarized and in may ways diminished. But we shouldn’t blame the computers but our own institutions. Our organizations seem intent on becoming more centralized, more bureaucratic, more authoritarian. In the information age the should instead become decentralized, more autonomous, and be able to build consensus.
Always interesting ideas coming from Niall Ferguson and that’s why the left has labeled him a conservative. He’s not, really, just not of the left either so to them that makes him an enemy (as usual).