Niall Ferguson

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Niall Ferguson

Born 18 April 1964 (1964-04-18) (age 46)
Glasgow, Scotland
Nationality British
Fields Financial and economic history
Institutions Harvard University
Harvard Business School
London School of Economics
Alma mater Magdalen College, Oxford
Known for Counterfactual history
Economic history

Niall Campbell Douglas Ferguson (born April 18, 1964, in Glasgow)[1] is a British historian who specialises in financial and economic history as well as the history of colonialism. He is the Laurence A. Tisch Professor of History at Harvard University[2] as well as William Ziegler Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School, and also currently the Philippe Roman Chair in History and International Affairs at the London School of Economics. He was educated at the private Glasgow Academy in Scotland, and at Magdalen College, Oxford.

The Times Higher Education noted his "pugnacious undergraduate life and debating style".[3] In 2008, Ferguson published The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World[4] which he also presented as a Channel 4 television series. At Harvard College, Ferguson teaches an undergraduate class entitled "Western Ascendancy: The Mainsprings of Global Power from 1600 to the Present."

Contents

[edit] Career

[edit] Academic career

Ferguson is a Senior Research Fellow of Jesus College, Oxford University and a Senior Fellow of the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. He is a resident faculty member of the Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, and an advisory fellow of the Barsanti Military History Center at the University of North Texas.

In May 2010 he announced that the Education Secretary in Britain's newly elected Conservative/Lib Dem government had invited him to write a new history syllabus—"history as a connected narrative"— for schools in England and Wales.[6]

In the award-winning play The History Boys, by one of Ferguson's detractors, Alan Bennett, Ferguson is used as an inspiration for the character of Irwin, the "iconoclastic" and controversialist history teacher who tells his students to regard Carry On films as cultural artifacts rather than only appreciating the classics such as Walt Whitman and then Irwin becomes a "dumbed-down" TV personality and finally a "manipulative" political minister; Ferguson reacted that he "practically jumped out of the stalls" when he noticed his name in the introduction as he went to see the play and "Alan Bennett has had his fun but I’d like you to sit down while we look at some spreadsheets and graphs comparing my sales with Alan Bennett."[3][7][8] Ferguson goes on to say that he thinks many viewers liked Irwin[8] (even if Bennett intended the opposite), and The Guardian's reviewer—a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and critically-acclaimed in the visual arts[9] -- posited that without teachers like Irwin (or Ferguson) who challenge the conventional wisdom, "we would soon end up with the kind of cloying, patriotic narrative that envelops public history in America and elsewhere." In contrast, he found the teachers whom Bennett offered as an alternative to Irwin to be bad teachers: the character of Mrs. Lintott for boring the students with memorization of names, dates and places, and Bennett's protagonist, Hector, for giving the students "off-piste [off-track] intellectualism" and a "mechanistic" Victorian teaching style compared to Irwin.[7]

[edit] Business career

In 2007, Ferguson was appointed as an Investment Management Consultant by GLG Partners, focusing on geopolitical risk as well as current structural issues in economic behaviour relating to investment decisions.[10] GLG is a UK-based hedge fund management firm headed by Noam Gottesman.[11]

[edit] Career as commentator

In October 2007, Niall Ferguson left The Sunday Telegraph to join the Financial Times,[12] where he is now a contributing editor.[13]

Ferguson has often described the European Union as a disaster waiting to happen,[14] and has criticised President Vladimir Putin of Russia for authoritarianism. In Ferguson's view, certain of Putin's policies, if they continue, may stand to lead Russia to catastrophes equivalent to those that befell Germany during the Nazi era.[15]

[edit] Subject matter

[edit] World War I

In 1998 Ferguson published the critically acclaimed The Pity of War: Explaining World War One.[16] This is an analytic account of what Ferguson considered to be the ten great myths of the Great War. The book generated much controversy, particularly Ferguson's suggestion that it might have proved more beneficial for Europe if Britain had stayed out of the First World War in 1914, thereby allowing Germany to win.[17] Ferguson has argued that the British decision to intervene was what stopped a German victory in 1914–15. Furthermore, Ferguson expressed disagreement with the Sonderweg interpretation of German history championed by some German historians such as Fritz Fischer, Hans-Ulrich Wehler, Hans Mommsen and Wolfgang Mommsen who argued that the German Empire deliberately started an aggressive war in 1914 and that the Second Reich was little more than a dress rehearsal for the Third Reich. Likewise, Ferguson has often attacked the work of the German historian Michael Stürmer who argued that it was Germany's geographical situation in Central Europe that determined the course of German history.

On the contrary, Ferguson maintains that Germany waged a preventive war in 1914, a war largely forced on the Germans by reckless and irresponsible British diplomacy. In particular, Ferguson accused the British Foreign Secretary Sir Edward Grey of maintaining an ambiguous attitude to the question of whether Britain would enter the war or not, and thus confused Berlin over just what was the British attitude towards the question of intervention in the war.[18] Instead, Ferguson has accused London of unnecessarily allowing a regional war in Europe to escalate into a world war. Moreover, Ferguson denied that the origins of National Socialism can be traced back to Imperial Germany; instead Ferguson asserted the origins of Nazism can only be traced back to the First World War and its aftermath.

The “myths” of World War I that Ferguson attacks, with his counter-arguments in parentheticals, are:

Another controversial aspect of the Pity of War was Ferguson's use of counterfactual history. Ferguson presented a counter-factual version of Europe under Imperial German domination that was peaceful, prosperous, democratic and without ideologies like Communism and fascism.[32] In Ferguson's view, had Germany won World War One, then the lives of millions would have been saved, something like the European Union would have been founded in 1914, and Britain would have remained an empire and the world's dominant financial power.[32]

[edit] Rothschilds

Ferguson wrote two volumes about the prominent Rothschild family:

The books won the Wadsworth Prize for Business History and were also short-listed for the Jewish Quarterly-Wingate Literary Award and the American National Jewish Book Award.[13]

[edit] Counterfactual history

Ferguson is the leading[says who?][peacock term] academic champion of counterfactual history, and edited a collection of essays exploring the subject titled Virtual History: Alternatives and Counterfactuals (1997). Ferguson likes to imagine alternative outcomes as a way of stressing the contingent aspects of history. For Ferguson, great forces don't make history; individuals do and nothing is predetermined. Thus, for Ferguson there are no paths in history that will determine how things will work out. The world is neither progressing nor regressing; only the actions of individuals will determine whether we live in a better or worse world. His championing of the method was controversial within the field.[35]

[edit] Henry Kissinger

In 2003, former United States Secretary of State Henry Kissinger provided Ferguson with access to his White House diaries, letters, and archives for what Ferguson calls a "warts-and-all biography" of the man.[36]

[edit] Economic policy

In its August 15, 2005 edition, The New Republic published "The New New Deal", an essay by Ferguson and Laurence J. Kotlikoff, a Professor of Economics at Boston University. The two scholars called for the following changes to the American government's fiscal and income security policies:

A recent New Republic piece with Harvard's Samuel J. Abrams explored attitudes towards immigration in Europe and the United States.[citation needed]

[edit] Criticisms

[edit] As scholar

A few fellow academics[quantify] have questioned Ferguson's commitment to scholarship. Benjamin Wallace-Wells, an editor of The Washington Monthly, comments that

"The House of Rothschild remains Ferguson's only major work to have received prizes and wide acclaim from other historians. Research restrains sweeping, absolute claims: Rothschild is the last book Ferguson wrote for which he did original archival work, and his detailed knowledge of his subject meant that his arguments for it couldn't be too grand."[37]

John Lewis Gaddis, a renowned Cold War era historian, characterized Ferguson as having unrivaled "range, productivity and visibility" at the same time as criticising his work as being "unpersuasive". Gaddis goes on to state that "several of Ferguson's claims, moreover, are contradictory".[38]

Eric Hobsbawm has praised Ferguson as an excellent historian.[39] However, he has also criticised Ferguson, saying, on the BBC Radio Program "Start the Week", that he was a "nostalgist for empire".[40] Ferguson responded to the above criticisms in a Washington Post "Live Discussions" online forum in 2006.[41]

[edit] Exchange with Krugman

In May 2009, Ferguson became involved in a high-profile exchange of views with economist Paul Krugman (then the most recent Economics Nobel Prize winner) arising out of a panel discussion hosted by Pen/New York Review on April 30, 2009, regarding the U.S. economy. Ferguson contended that the Obama administration's policies are simultaneously Keynesian and monetarist, in an incoherent mix, and specifically that the government's issuance of a multitude of new bonds will cause an increase in interest rates. Krugman then extended the criticism to China and the European Union, as both pursued policies more in accord with Ferguson's stance than Krugman's.[42]

Krugman has argued that Ferguson's view is "resurrecting 75-year old fallacies" and full of "basic errors". He has also stated that Ferguson is a "poseur" who "...hasn’t bothered to understand the basics, relying on snide comments and surface cleverness to convey the impression of wisdom. It’s all style, no comprehension of substance."[43][44] J. Bradford DeLong of Berkeley agreed with Krugman, concluding "Niall Ferguson does indeed know a lot less than economists knew in the 1920s".[45]

However, in the weeks after that exchange, market interest rates did rise, and on May 30 Ferguson claimed this as vindication of his position.[not in citation given][46] Krugman, at first, stated that the increase in interest rates reflects an improvement in market sentiment.[47] But then on June 29, 2010, investors took notice as Krugman acknowledged that he believed there was risk of a "depression"[48] and as of June 2010 the interest rates are back down again.[citation needed][original research?]

Ferguson criticized Krugman in his December 7, 2009 Newsweek cover story, "An Empire at Risk," accusing that Krugman's partisanship caused him to change his position between 2003 and 2004. Ferguson wrote:

Now, who said the following? 'My prediction is that politicians will eventually be tempted to resolve the [fiscal] crisis the way irresponsible governments usually do: by printing money, both to pay current bills and to inflate away debt. And as that temptation becomes obvious, interest rates will soar.' Seems pretty reasonable to me. The surprising thing is that this was none other than Paul Krugman, the high priest of Keynesianism, writing back in March 2003. A year and a half later he was comparing the U.S. deficit with Argentina's (at a time when it was 4.5 percent of GDP). Has the economic situation really changed so drastically that now the same Krugman believes it was 'deficits that saved us,' and wants to see an even larger deficit next year? Perhaps. But it might just be that the party in power has changed.[49]

[edit] Personal life

After attending The Glasgow Academy, Ferguson received a Demyship (half-scholarship) at Magdalen College, Oxford, graduating with a first-class honours degree in History in 1985.[16]

He is married to journalist Susan Douglas, whom he met in 1987 when she was his editor at the Daily Mail. They have three children.[50] In February 2010 the Daily Mail reported that, following a series of affairs, Ferguson had left his wife for former Dutch MP and feminist critic of Islam Ayaan Hirsi Ali.[8][51] A similar story in The Independent was followed by the publication of a correction, noting that Ferguson's marriage had broken down before he met Ali.[52]

[edit] See also

[edit] Bibliography

[edit] The Cash Nexus

In his 2001 book, The Cash Nexus, which he wrote following a year as Houblon-Norman Fellow at the Bank of England,[13] Ferguson argues that the popular saying, "money makes the world go 'round", is wrong; instead he presented a case for human actions in history motivated by far more than just economic concerns. Ferguson also made a case against historians such as Paul Kennedy who argued that the United States is a politically and economically over-stretched power on the verge of collapse. If anything, Ferguson argues that United States is not sufficiently involved in the affairs of the world.[citation needed]

[edit] Colossus and Empire

In his books Colossus and Empire, Ferguson presents a nuanced and partially apologetic view of the British Empire and in conclusion proposes that the modern policies of the United Kingdom and the United States, in taking a more active role in resolving conflict arising from the failure of states, are analogous to the 'Anglicization' policies adopted by the British Empire throughout the 19th century. In Colossus, Ferguson came to regard his earlier advocacy of American hegemony in foreign affairs in The Cash Nexus as unrealistic. In his view, the Iraq War was largely a consequence of domestic politics, including interdepartmental rivalries within the U.S. government.[citation needed]

[edit] War of the World

The War of the World, published in 2006, had been ten years in the making and is a comprehensive analysis of the savagery of the 20th century. Ferguson shows how a combination of economic volatility, decaying empires, psychopathic dictators, and racially/ethnically motivated (and institutionalized) violence resulted in the wars, and the genocides of what he calls "History's Age of Hatred". The New York Times Book Review named War of the World one of the 100 Notable Books of the Year in 2006, while the International Herald Tribune called it "one of the most intriguing attempts by an historian to explain man's inhumanity to man".[53] Ferguson addresses the paradox that, though the 20th century was "so bloody", it was also "a time of unparalleled [economic] progress". As with his earlier work Empire,[54] War of the World was accompanied by a Channel 4 television series presented by Ferguson.[55]

[edit] The Ascent of Money

Published in 2008, The Ascent of Money examines the long history of money, credit, and banking. In it he predicts a financial crisis as a result of the world economy and in particular the United States using too much credit. Specifically he cites the ChinaAmerica dynamic which he refers to as Chimerica where an Asian "savings glut" helped create the subprime mortgage crisis with an influx of easy money.[56]

[edit] Publications

[3]

[edit] As Contributor

[edit] Television documentaries

[edit] References

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ http://www.niallferguson.com/site/FERG/Templates/General2.aspx?pageid=5
  2. ^ Niall Ferguson - Biography
  3. ^ a b "The Week in Higher Education". Times Higher Education. 8 July 2010. http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=26&storycode=412382&c=1. 
  4. ^ Ferguson, Niall (2008). The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World. London: Allen Lane. ISBN 978-1846141065. 
  5. ^ http://www2.lse.ac.uk/newsAndMedia/newsArchive/archives/2009/ferguson.aspx
  6. ^ Higgins, Charlotte (31 May 2010). "Empire strikes back: rightwing historian to get curriculum role". The Guardian (London): p. 1. 
  7. ^ a b http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2006/oct/15/film.comment Commentary & review of The History Boys by Tristram Hunt, Fellow of the Royal Historical Society. Source for "iconoclastic...dumbed-down...manipulative," Carry On films, & comparison to Bennett's portrayal of other teachers.
  8. ^ a b c "PROFILE: Niall Ferguson". The Times (London). 14 February 2010. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article7026213.ece. 
  9. ^ Hunt, Tristram (2008-06-03). "Full profile". The Guardian (London). http://www.guardian.co.uk/global/2007/jun/03/tristramhunt. 
  10. ^ "Meet The Hedge Fund Historian". Forbes.com. http://www.forbes.com/2007/09/30/niall-ferguson-glg-face-markets-cx_ll_0927autofacescan02.html. Retrieved 2008-12-20. 
  11. ^ "GLG Company Description". https://www.glgpartners.com/about_glg/company_description. Retrieved 2008-12-20. 
  12. ^ Tryhorn, Chris (23 October 2007). "Niall Ferguson joins FT". The Guardian (London). http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2007/oct/23/pressandpublishing.financialtimes. Retrieved 2010-05-20. 
  13. ^ a b c "Niall Ferguson: Biography". http://www.niallferguson.org/bio.html. Retrieved 2008-07-14. 
  14. ^ "The End of Europe?". Speech to the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research. 4 March 2004. http://www.aei.org/speech/20045. 
  15. ^ Ferguson, Niall (2005-01-01). "Look back at Weimar - and start to worry about Russia". The Daily Telegraph (London). http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2005/01/01/do0101.xml. Retrieved 2010-05-20. 
  16. ^ a b Niall Ferguson, Senior Fellow from the Hoover Institution website
  17. ^ Ferguson, Niall The Pity of War, Basic Books: New York, 1998, 1999 pages 460–461
  18. ^ Ferguson, Niall The Pity of War, Basic Books: New York, 1998, 1999 pages 154–156
  19. ^ Ferguson, Niall The Pity of War, Basic Books: New York, 1998, 1999 pages 27–30
  20. ^ Ferguson, Niall The Pity of War, Basic Books: New York, 1998, 1999 pages 52–55
  21. ^ Ferguson, Niall The Pity of War, Basic Books: New York, 1998, 1999 pages 68–76
  22. ^ Ferguson, Niall The Pity of War, Basic Books: New York, 1998, 1999 pages 87–101 & 118–125
  23. ^ Ferguson, Niall The Pity of War, Basic Books: New York, 1998, 1999 pages 168–173
  24. ^ Ferguson, Niall The Pity of War, Basic Books: New York, 1998, 1999 pages 197–205
  25. ^ Ferguson, Niall The Pity of War, Basic Books: New York, 1998, 1999 pages 239–247
  26. ^ Ferguson, Niall The Pity of War, Basic Books: New York, 1998, 1999 pages 267–277
  27. ^ Ferguson, Niall The Pity of War, Basic Books: New York, 1998, 1999 pages 310–317
  28. ^ Ferguson, Niall The Pity of War, Basic Books: New York, 1998, 1999 pages 336–338
  29. ^ Ferguson, Niall The Pity of War, Basic Books: New York, 1998, 1999 pages 357–366
  30. ^ Ferguson, Niall The Pity of War, Basic Books: New York, 1998, 1999 pages 380–388
  31. ^ Ferguson, Niall The Pity of War, Basic Books: New York, 1998, 1999 pages 412–431
  32. ^ a b Ferguson, Niall The Pity of War, Basic Books: New York, 1998, 1999 pages 168–173 & 460–461
  33. ^ Ferguson, Niall (1999). The House of Rothschild: Money's Prophets, 1798–1848. Volume 1. New York: Penguin Books. ISBN 0-14-024084-5. 
  34. ^ Ferguson, Niall (2000). The House of Rothschild: The World's Banker 1849–1998. Volume 2. New York: Penguin Books. ISBN 0-14-028662-4. 
  35. ^ Kreisler, Harry (2003-11-03). "Conversation with Niall Ferguson: Being a Historian". Conversations with History. Regents of the University of California. http://globetrotter.berkeley.edu/people3/Ferguson/ferguson-con2.html. Retrieved 2008-07-15. 
  36. ^ Hagan, Joe (2006-11-27). "The Once and Future Kissinger". New York. http://nymag.com/news/people/24750/. Retrieved 2008-07-14. 
  37. ^ http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2004/0406.wallace-wells.html
  38. ^ "The Last Empire, for Now". The New York Times. 2004-07-25. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D0CE6D7173AF936A15754C0A9629C8B63. Retrieved 2010-05-20. 
  39. ^ Globalisation, democracy and terrorism, Eric Hobsbawm (Abacus 2008)
  40. ^ http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/factual/starttheweek_20060612.shtml
  41. ^ Ferguson, Niall (2006-11-07). "Book World Live". The Washington Post. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/discussion/2006/11/03/DI2006110301187.html. Retrieved 2010-05-20. 
  42. ^ Krugman Slams German Austerity.; http://www.english.rfi.fr/euro-austerity-unpopular-us-paul-krugman-quotes Krugman claims austerity unpopular.]; "A new austerity drive is sweeping across Europe." ~BBC. China adopts a "similar tactic" as E.U.; Krugman unhappy.
  43. ^ See Liquidity preference, loanable funds, and Niall Ferguson (wonkish) and Gratuitous ignorance, Paul Krugman, The Conscience of a Liberal.
  44. ^ See http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/08/17/black-cats/
  45. ^ Brad DeLong: This Is Getting Damned Annoying: Will I Ever Be Allowed to Disagree with Paul Krugman Again About Anything? (Niall Ferguson Edition), May 20, 2009.
  46. ^ (FT)
  47. ^ http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/22/whats-moving-interest-rates/ What's moving interest rates
  48. ^ [1][2]
  49. ^ http://www.newsweek.com/id/224694/page/4
  50. ^ Lynn, Matthew (August 23, 2009). "Professor Paul Krugman at war with Niall Ferguson over inflation". The Sunday Times (London). http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/economics/article6806419.ece?print=yes&randnum=1251277896493. Retrieved 2009-10-25. 
  51. ^ "The historian, his wife and a mistress living under a fatwa". dailymail.co.uk. 8 February 2010. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1249247/The-historian-wife-mistress-living-fatwa.html. 
  52. ^ "Niall Ferguson and Ayaan Hirsi Ali". independent.co.uk. 25 February 2010. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/corrections/niall-ferguson-and-ayaan-hirsi-ali-1909439.html. 
  53. ^ "100 Notable Books of the Year". The New York Times. 2006-11-22. http://www.nytimes.com/ref/books/review/20061203notable-books.html. Retrieved 2008-07-14. 
  54. ^ Ferguson, Niall. "Empire and globalisation". Channel 4. http://www.channel4.com/history/microsites/H/history/e-h/empire.html. Retrieved 2008-07-14. 
  55. ^ a b "The War of the World". Channel 4. http://www.channel4.com/history/microsites/H/history/t-z/warworld.html. Retrieved 2008-07-14. 
  56. ^ McRae, Hamish (2008-10-31). "The Ascent of Money, By Niall Ferguson—Reviews, Books—The Independent". London. http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/the-ascent-of-money-by-niall-ferguson-980013.html. Retrieved 2008-11-30. 

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[edit] External links

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