Niall Ferguson

Light Hardcover (1 lb or less)

Kentucky

The Politics of Catastrophe

"All disasters are in some sense man-made."

Setting the annus horribilis of 2020 in historical perspective, Niall Ferguson explains why we are getting worse, not better, at handling disasters.

Disasters are inherently hard to predict. Pandemics, like earthquakes, wildfires, financial crises. and wars, are not normally distributed; there is no cycle of history to help us anticipate the next catastrophe. But when disaster strikes, we ought to be better prepared than the Romans were when Vesuvius erupted, or medieval Italians when the Black Death struck. We have science on our side, after all.

Yet in 2020 the responses of many developed countries, including the United States, to a new virus from China were badly bungled. Why? Why did only a few Asian countries learn the right lessons from SARS and MERS? While populist leaders certainly performed poorly in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic, Niall Ferguson argues that more profound pathologies were at work--pathologies already visible in our responses to earlier disasters.

In books going back nearly twenty years, including Colossus, The Great Degeneration, and The Square and the Tower, Ferguson has studied the foibles of modern America, from imperial hubris to bureaucratic sclerosis and online fragmentation.

Drawing from multiple disciplines, including economics, cliodynamics, and network science, Doom offers not just a history but a general theory of disasters, showing why our ever more bureaucratic and complex systems are getting worse at handling them.

Doom is the lesson of history that this country--indeed the West as a whole--urgently needs to learn, if we want to handle the next crisis better, and to avoid the ultimate doom of irreversible decline.

Doom

8096c37c-e77c-4051-afb9-86d51e3ded7c-1

Dust jacket and book appears to have slight moisture damsge, does not affect pages, see photo

Heavy Hardcover (2 to 4 lbs)

Alabama

Twentieth-Century Conflict and the Descent of the West

Niall Fergusson's most important book to date-a revolutionary reinterpretation of the modern era that resolves its central paradox: why unprecedented progress coincided with unprecedented violence and why the seeming triumph of the West bore the seeds of its undoing. From the conflicts that presaged the First World War to the aftershocks of the cold war, the twentieth century was by far the bloodiest in all of human history. How can we explain the astonishing scale and intensity of its violence when, thanks to the advances of science and economics, most people were better off than ever before-eating better, growing taller, and living longer? Wherever one looked, the world in 1900 offered the happy prospect of ever-greater interconnection. Why, then, did global progress descend into internecine war and genocide? Drawing on a pioneering combination of history, economics, and evolutionary theory, Niall Ferguson-one of Timemagazine's "100 Most Influential People"-masterfully examines what he calls the age of hatred and sets out to explain what went wrong with modernity. On a quest that takes him from the Siberian steppe to the plains of Poland, from the streets of Sarajevo to the beaches of Okinawa, Ferguson reveals an age turned upside down by economic volatility, multicultural communities torn apart by the irregularities of boom and bust, an era poisoned by the idea of irreconcilable racial differences, and a struggle between decaying old empires and predatory new states. Who won the war of the world? We tend to assume it was the West. Some even talk of the American century. But for Ferguson, the biggest upshot of twentieth-century upheaval was the decline of Western dominance over Asia. A work of revelatory interpretive power, The War of the Worldis Niall Ferguson's masterwork.

The War of the World

d9f04a45-5274-4713-9871-5d1bd2d2a0f5-1

P former library book has plastic cover on it and stickers 

Pennsylvania

The West and the Rest

A history of Western civilization's rise to global dominance offers insight into the development of such concepts as competition, modern medicine, and the work ethic, arguing that Western dominance is being lost to cultures who are more productively utilizing Western techniques.

Civilization

5366c75d-d3f4-48b3-bda7-fb1fae1a6392-1

Paperback (1 to 2 lbs)

Massachusetts

Explaining World War I

In this landmark work of history, Ferguson vividly brings back to life this terrifying period and makes a simple and provocative argument: that the human atrocity known as the Great War was entirely England's fault. 34 illustrations.

The Pity of War

41d1939f-6b6b-4b44-82cf-f0dc912a2a2c-1

New York

Texas

A Financial History of the World

Chronicles the evolution of finance from its origins in Mesopotamia to the modern world's most recent upheavals, covering such topics as the stock market bubble that prompted the French Revolution and the theories behind common investment vehicles.

The Ascent of Money

ce5f654c-18ef-46d3-a760-ea4f53841152-1

Heavy Paperback (2 to 4 lbs)

Georgia

Colorado

1923-1968: the Idealist

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 man” whose advice has been sought by every president from Kennedy to Obama—he has also been hounded by conspiracy theorists, scouring his every “telcon” for evidence of Machiavellian malfeasance. Yet as Niall Ferguson shows in this magisterial two-volume biography, drawing not only on Kissinger’s hitherto closed private papers but also on documents from more than a hundred archives around the world, the idea of Kissinger as the ruthless arch-realist is based on a profound misunderstanding. The first half of Kissinger’s life is usually skimmed over as a quintessential tale of American ascent: the Jewish refugee from Hitler’s Germany who made it to the White House. But in this first of two volumes, Ferguson shows that what Kissinger achieved before his appointment as Richard Nixon’s national security adviser was astonishing in its own right. Toiling as a teenager in a New York factory, he studied indefatigably at night. He was drafted into the U.S. infantry and saw action at the Battle of the Bulge—as well as the liberation of a concentration camp—but ended his army career interrogating Nazis. It was at Harvard that Kissinger found his vocation. Having immersed himself in the philosophy of Kant and the diplomacy of Metternich, he shot to celebrity by arguing for “limited nuclear war.” Nelson Rockefeller hired him. Kennedy called him to Camelot. Yet Kissinger’s rise was anything but irresistible. Dogged by press gaffes and disappointed by “Rocky,” Kissinger seemed stuck—until a trip to Vietnam changed everything. The Idealist is the story of one of the most important strategic thinkers America has ever produced. It is also a political Bildungsroman, explaining how “Dr. Strangelove” ended up as consigliere to a politician he had always abhorred. Like Ferguson’s classic two-volume history of the House of Rothschild, Kissinger sheds dazzling new light on an entire era. The essential account of an extraordinary life, it recasts the Cold War world.

Kissinger

6fdaa718-3cbd-40a1-8dd7-22e4c0d13ad8-0

Rhode Island

A Financial History of the World: 10th Anniversary Edition

Light Paperback (1 lb or less)

Nebraska

The Rise and Fall of the American Empire

From the bestselling author of The Ascent of Money and The Square and the Tower Is America an empire? Certainly not, according to our government. Despite the conquest of two sovereign states in as many years, despite the presence of more than 750 military installations in two thirds of the world’s countries and despite his stated intention "to extend the benefits of freedom...to every corner of the world," George W. Bush maintains that "America has never been an empire." "We don’t seek empires," insists Defense Secretary Rumsfeld. "We’re not imperialistic." Nonsense, says Niall Ferguson. In Colossus he argues that in both military and economic terms America is nothing less than the most powerful empire the world has ever seen. Just like the British Empire a century ago, the United States aspires to globalize free markets, the rule of law, and representative government. In theory it’s a good project, says Ferguson. Yet Americans shy away from the long-term commitments of manpower and money that are indispensable if rogue regimes and failed states really are to be changed for the better. Ours, he argues, is an empire with an attention deficit disorder, imposing ever more unrealistic timescales on its overseas interventions. Worse, it’s an empire in denial—a hyperpower that simply refuses to admit the scale of its global responsibilities. And the negative consequences will be felt at home as well as abroad. In an alarmingly persuasive final chapter Ferguson warns that this chronic myopia also applies to our domestic responsibilities. When overstretch comes, he warns, it will come from within—and it will reveal that more than just the feet of the American colossus is made of clay.

Colossus

5a2767ce-defc-4c4e-a690-c9a08ac4ea5d-1

Oversized Hardcover (4 to 6 lbs)

California

A definitive portrait of the American statesman, based on unprecedented access to his private papers, challenges common misconceptions to trace Kissinger's beliefs to philosophical idealism.

#nonfiction #history #paperback #economics 

Florida

Connecticut

Networks and Power, from the Freemasons to Facebook

The instant New York Times bestseller.

A brilliant recasting of the turning points in world history, including the one we're living through, as a collision between old power hierarchies and new social networks.

"Captivating and compelling." --The New York Times

"Niall Ferguson has again written a brilliant book...In 400 pages you will have restocked your mind. Do it." --The Wall Street Journal

"The Square and the Tower, in addition to being provocative history, may prove to be a bellwether work of the Internet Age." --Christian Science Monitor

Most history is hierarchical: it's about emperors, presidents, prime ministers and field marshals. It's about states, armies and corporations. It's about orders from on high. Even history "from below" is often about trade unions and workers' parties. But what if that's simply because hierarchical institutions create the archives that historians rely on? What if we are missing the informal, less well documented social networks that are the true sources of power and drivers of change?

The 21st century has been hailed as the Age of Networks. However, in The Square and the Tower, Niall Ferguson argues that networks have always been with us, from the structure of the brain to the food chain, from the family tree to freemasonry. Throughout history, hierarchies housed in high towers have claimed to rule, but often real power has resided in the networks in the town square below. For it is networks that tend to innovate. And it is through networks that revolutionary ideas can contagiously spread. Just because conspiracy theorists like to fantasize about such networks doesn't mean they are not real.

From the cults of ancient Rome to the dynasties of the Renaissance, from the founding fathers to Facebook, The Square and the Tower tells the story of the rise, fall and rise of networks, and shows how network theory--concepts such as clustering, degrees of separation, weak ties, contagions and phase transitions--can transform our understanding of both the past and the present.

Just as The Ascent of Money put Wall Street into historical perspective, so The Square and the Tower does the same for Silicon Valley. And it offers a bold prediction about which hierarchies will withstand this latest wave of network disruption--and which will be toppled.

The Square and the Tower

b5695214-fd00-4b3a-8229-6d9f3a07bd23-1

Very good clean clean copy, very good dust jacket.

Hardcover (1 to 2 lbs)

1st/1st * Civilization

There are some notes and underlined passages and discoloration on the dust jacket 

Minnesota

Very good clean tight copy, good dust jacket ,little wrinkles.

Studies the origins, financing, and outcome of World War I, and discusses public support, recruiting and retention of soldiers, treatment of prisoners, and related issues

1st/1st * The Pity of War

The Lives and Time of Siegmund Warburg

"...[an] excellent, just in time guide to the history of fincance and financial crisis."ùThe Washington Post --

Browse by categories

Save this search

Niall Ferguson

Doom

Niall Ferguson

The War of the World

Niall Ferguson

Civilization

Niall Ferguson

The Pity of War

Niall Ferguson

Doom

Niall Ferguson

Doom

Niall Ferguson

The Ascent of Money

Niall Ferguson

The Pity of War

Niall Ferguson

Kissinger

Niall Ferguson

The Ascent of Money

Niall Ferguson

Colossus

Niall Ferguson

Kissinger

Niall Ferguson

The Ascent of Money

Niall Ferguson

Kissinger

Niall Ferguson

The Square and the Tower

Niall Ferguson

1st/1st * Civilization

Niall Ferguson

Civilization

Niall Ferguson

1st/1st * The Pity of War

Niall Ferguson

High Financier

Niall Ferguson

The War of the World: Twentieth-Century Conflict and the Descent of the West

Niall Ferguson

Civilization

Niall Ferguson

Doom

Niall Ferguson

Civilization

Niall Ferguson

The Ascent of Money (Hebrew Edition)