For Historian Niall Ferguson the decisive breakthroughs in the Cold War occurred inseemingly unrelated fields — nuclear arms control and human rights.
The decisive breakthroughs in the Cold War occurred in seemingly unrelated fields– nuclear arms control and human rights. But was the collapse of communism a reflection of imperial overstretch or the result of liberal aspirations for freedom? This event celebrates the publication of Professor Ferguson’s new book Civilization: The West and the Rest. Niall Ferguson is Philippe Roman Chair inHistory and International Affairs at LSE IDEAS for 2010-11.
Nuclear Arms and Human Rights – March 1st, 2011:
Speaker: Professor Niall Ferguson Chair: Professor Michael Cox. This event was recorded on 1 March 2011 in Old Theatre, Old Building
Recommended Readings:
Wanted:A Grand Strategy for America by Niall Ferguson
Why are all the good historians rightwing? By Jonathan Jones (Guardian)
Writers such as Niall Ferguson are the only ones asking serious questions. Is leftwing history dissolving in a sea of good intentions?
Biography:
Niall Ferguson, MA, D.Phil., is Laurence A. Tisch Professor of History at Harvard University and William Ziegler Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School. He is also a Senior Research Fellow at Jesus College, Oxford University, and a Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University.
Born in Glasgow in 1964, he was a Demy at Magdalen College and graduated with First Class Honours in 1985. After two years as a Hanseatic Scholar in Hamburg and Berlin, he took up a Research Fellowship at Christ’s College, Cambridge, in 1989, subsequently moving to a Lectureship at Peterhouse. He returned to Oxford in 1992 to become Fellow and Tutor in Modern History at Jesus College, a post he held until 2000, when he was appointed Professor of Political and Financial History at Oxford. Two years later he left for the United States to take up the Herzog Chair in Financial History at the Stern Business School, New York University, before moving to Harvard in 2004.
His first book, Paper and Iron: Hamburg Business and German Politics in the Era of Inflation 1897-1927 (Cambridge University Press,1995),was short-listed for the History Today Book of the Year award, while the collection of essays he edited, Virtual History: Alternatives and Counter factuals (Macmillan, 1997), was a UK bestseller and subsequently published inthe United States, Germany, Spain and elsewhere.
In 1998 he published to international critical acclaim The Pity of War: Explaining World War One (Basic Books) and The World’s Banker:The History of the House of Rothschild (Penguin). The latter won the Wadsworth Prize for Business History and was also short-listed for the Jewish Quarterly/Wingate Literary Award and the American National Jewish Book Award.In 2001 he published The Cash Nexus:Money and Power in the Modern World, 1700-2000 (Basic), following a year as Houblon-Norman Fellow at the Bank of England.
He is a regular contributor to television and radio onboth sides of the Atlantic. In 2003 he wrote and presented a six-part history of the British Empire for Channel 4, the UK terrestrial broadcaster. The accompanying book, Empire: The Rise and Demise ofthe British World Order and the Lessons for Global Power (Basic), was a bestseller in both Britain and the United States. The sequel, Colossus: The Rise and Fall of the American Empire, was published in 2004 by Penguin. Two years later he published The War of theWorld: Twentieth Century Conflict andthe Descent of the West, which was also a PBS series. His most recent book is the best-selling Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World (Penguin,2008). It aired on PBS this year. He has just completed a biography of the banker Siegmund Warburg and is now working on the life of Henry Kissinger.
A prolific commentator on contemporary politics and economics, Niall Ferguson writes and reviews regularly for the British and American press. He is a contributing editor for the Financial Times and a regular contributor to Newsweek. In 2004 Time magazine named him as one of the world’s hundred most influential people.
RelatedBlog:
Orson Welles Predicts 9/11 and Today’s Nuclear Crisis (1980’s)
Other Related Blogs:
Niall Ferguson Blasts Barack Obama For Failed Egypt Foreign Policy
Niall Ferguson Explains Why Global Economic Growth is Shifting East
Niall Ferguson promotes “Civilization: The West and the Rest” on Indian TV
