Niall Ferguson

Most history is hierarchical: it's about popes, presidents, prime ministers and other potentates. It's about states, armies and corporations. It's about orders from on high. But what if that's simply because hierarchical institutions create the archives that historians rely on? What if we are missing the less visible social networks that are the true drivers of change - leaving them to the conspiracy theorists, with their dreams of all-powerful Illuminati?...

"What causes rich countries to lose their way? Symptoms of decline are all around us today: slowing growth, crushing debts, increasing inequality, aging populations, antisocial behavior. But what exactly has gone wrong? The answer, Niall Ferguson argues ... is that our institutions--the intricate frameworks within which a society can flourish or fail--are degenerating"--Dust cover flap.

A bestselling historian shows how the British Empire created the modern world, in a book lauded as "a rattling good tale" (Wall Street Journal) and "popular history at its best" (Washington Post) The British Empire was the largest in all history: the nearest thing to global domination ever achieved. The world we know today is in large measure the product of Britain's Age of Empire. The global spread of capitalism, telecommunications, the English...

In this groundbreaking new biography, based on more than ten thousand hitherto unavailable letters and diary entries, bestselling author Niall Ferguson returns to his roots as a financial historian to tell the story of Siegmund Warburg, an extraordinary man whose austere philosophy of finance offers much insight today. A refugee from Hitler's Germany, Warburg rose to become the dominant figure in postwar City of London and one of the architects of...

What if there had been no American War of Independence? What if Hitler had invaded Britain? What if Kennedy had lived? What if Russia had won the Cold War? Niall Ferguson, author of the highly acclaimed “The Pity of War”, leads the charge in this historically rigorous series of separate voyages into 'imaginary time" and provides far-reaching answers to these intriguing questions. Ferguson's brilliant 90-page introduction doubles as a manifesto...

In the sweep of human history, the European Union stands out as one of humankind's most ambitious endeavours. It encompasses half a billion people, twenty-seven member states, twenty-three languages, and an economy valued at over $15 trillion. Modern Europe's stunning achievements aside, its sovereign debt crisis has shaken the world's largest political and economic union to its core. Can the federal institutions and shared values of Europeans meet...

The author presents his evidence for the West's historical dominance as well as his argument for the West's coming decline, all linked to six powerful "killer applications" first developed by the West--competition, science, the rule of law, modern medicine, consumerism, and the work ethic.

From the bestselling author of The Ascent of Money and The Square and the Tower, the definitive biography of Henry Kissinger, based on unprecedented access to his private papers.
Winner of the Council on Foreign Relations Arthur Ross Book Award
No American statesman has been as revered or as reviled as Henry Kissinger. Once hailed as “Super K”—the “indispensable...

With lessons from the fight against terrorism in Iraq to the rise of an internet-powered surveillance state in China, host Niall Ferguson shows how our democracies are under threat from forces that exploit the social networks we invented.

With the help of experts in network theory, Host Niall Ferguson untangles important issues including why social media networks polarize us, why some ideas go viral and why truth itself is at a disadvantage.