A Financial History of the World

The Ascent of Money

Bread, cash, dosh, dough, loot. Call if what you like, it matters now more than ever. In The Ascent of Money, Niall Ferguson shows that financial history is the back-story to all history. 
 
From the banking dynasty who funded the Italian Renaissance to the stock market bubble that caused the French Revolution, this is the story of booms and busts as it's never been told before. 
 
With the world in the grip of the biggest financial crisis since the Great Depression, there's never been a better time to understand the ascent - and descent - of money. 
 
'Beautifully written ... Breathtakingly clever' Sunday Telegraph 
 
'A lucid and racy account of financial history' New Statesman 
 
'A fine, readable and entertaining history' Dominic Sandbrook, Daily Telegraph, Books of the Year 
 
 'The tales he tells of boom and bust, of triumph and disaster, of bubbles that inflate ... are the very essence of financial history' Bill Emmott, Financial Times 
 
'An often enlightening and enjoyable tour through the underside of great events, a lesson in how the most successful great powers have always been underpinned by smart money' Robert Skidelsky, New York Review of Books

Niall Ferguson is one of Britain's most renowned historians. He is the Milbank Family Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, a senior faculty fellow of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard, and a visiting professor at Tsinghua University, Beijing. He is the author of fifteen books, including The Pity of War, The House of Rothschild, Empire, Civilization and Kissinger, 1923-1968: The Idealist, which won the Council on Foreign Relations Arthur Ross Prize. He is an award-making filmmaker, too, having won an international Emmy for his PBS series The Ascent of Money. His many other prizes include the Benjamin Franklin Prize for Public Service (2010), the Hayek Prize for Lifetime Achievement (2012) and the Ludwig Erhard Prize for Economic Journalism (2013). He was named Columnist of the Year at the 2018 British Press Awards.

Bread, cash, dosh, dough, loot. Call it what you like, it matters now more than ever. In The Ascent of Money, Niall Ferguson shows that finance is the foundation of all human progress and the lifeblood of history. From the cash injection that funded the Italian Renaissance to the stock market bubble that sparked the French Revolution, from the bonds that fuelled Britain's war effort to the Wall Street Crash and today's meltdown, this is the story of boom and bust as it's never been told before. Whether you're scraping by or rolling in it, there's no better time to understand the ascent of money.

The West and the Rest

Civilization

Winner of the Estoril Global Issues Distinguished Book Prize 2013 
 
In 1412, Europe was a miserable backwater ravaged by plague, bad sanitation and incessant war, while the Orient was home to dazzling civilizations. Yet, somehow, the West came to dominate the Rest for most of the next half millennium. 
 
In this vital, brilliant book, Niall Ferguson reveals the six 'killer applications' that the Rest lacked: competition, science, property rights, medicine, consumerism and the work ethic. And he asks: do we still have these winning tools? Or is this the end of Western ascendancy? 
 
'Brilliantly written, full of wit and virtuosity, stuffed with memorable lines and gorgeous bits of information. A great read' The Times 
 
'A dazzling history of Western ideas ... epic' Economist 
 
'Vivid and fascinating' Daily Telegraph 
 
'Superb ... brings history alive ... dazzling' Independent 
 
'This is sharp. It feels urgent. Ferguson ... twists his knife with great literary brio' Andrew Marr, Financial Times

Ferguson is the most brilliant British historian of his generation ... he writes with splendid panache

Civilization is another masterpiece ... a pulsing energy suffuses his account [and] fascinating facts burst like fireworks on every page

This is sharp. It feels urgent. Ferguson, with a properly financially literate mind, twists his knife with great literary brio

Networks, Hierarchies and the Struggle for Global Power

The Square and the Tower

THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER 
'Silicon Valley needed a history lesson and Ferguson has provided it' Eric Schmidt 
 
Most history is about the people at the top of the towers of power. But what if the real action is in the social networks down below, in the town squares? Niall Ferguson, the international bestselling author of Empire, The Ascent of Money and Civilization, brilliantly recasts past and present as an unending contest between hierarchies and networks. 
 
'Provocative, snappy, a rare book ... fasten your seatbelts' Peter Frankopan, Daily Telegraph 
 
'Immensely stimulating, absorbing, illuminating ... sends ideas blazing all over the place ... one of the best popular historians of our time' David Goodhart, Prospect 
 
'Powerful, fast-paced ... a pull-yourself-together warning to the present by way of arresting historical precedent' Andrew Anthony, Guardian 
 
'Captivating and compelling' Jonathan A. Knee, The New York Times

How Britain Made the Modern World

Empire

Niall Ferguson's acclaimed bestseller on the highs and lows of Britain's empire 
 
Once vast swathes of the globe were coloured imperial red and Britannia ruled not just the waves, but the prairies of America, the plains of Asia, the jungles of Africa and the deserts of Arabia. Just how did a small, rainy island in the North Atlantic achieve all this? And why did the empire on which the sun literally never set finally decline and fall? Niall Ferguson's acclaimed Empire brilliantly unfolds the imperial story in all its splendours and its miseries, showing how a gang of buccaneers and gold-diggers planted the seed of the biggest empire in all history - and set the world on the road to modernity. 
 
'The most brilliant British historian of his generation ... Ferguson examines the roles of "pirates, planters, missionaries, mandarins, bankers and bankrupts" in the creation of history's largest empire ... he writes with splendid panache ... and a seemingly effortless, debonair wit' Andrew Roberts 
 
'Dazzling ... wonderfully readable' New York Review of Books 
 
'A remarkably readable précis of the whole British imperial story - triumphs, deceits, decencies, kindnesses, cruelties and all' Jan Morris 
 
'Empire is a pleasure to read and brims with insights and intelligence' Sunday Times

Niall Ferguson is one of Britain's most renowned historians. He is the Milbank Family Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, a senior faculty fellow of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard, and a visiting professor at Tsinghua University, Beijing. His most recent book is The Square and the Tower.

1923-1968: The Idealist

Kissinger

'Riveting ... this will be his masterpiece' - Andrew Roberts, The New York Times 
 
'For big, bold and compelling, it is impossible to ignore Kissinger' - John Bew, New Statesman, Books of the Year 
 
'This is a superb history of the modern world as well as a biography of Kissinger ... a tour de force' William Shawcross, The Times 
 
No American statesman has been as revered and as reviled as Henry Kissinger. Hailed by some as the "indispensable man", whose advice has been sought by every president from John F. Kennedy to George W. Bush, Kissinger has also attracted immense hostility from critics who have cast him as an amoral Machiavellian - the ultimate cold-blooded "realist". 
 
In this remarkable new book, the first of two volumes, Niall Ferguson has created an extraordinary panorama of Kissinger's world, and a paradigm-shifting reappraisal of the man. Only through knowledge of Kissinger's early life (as a Jew in Hitler's Germany, a poor immigrant in New York, a GI at the Battle of the Bulge, an interrogator of Nazis, and a student of history at Harvard) can we understand his debt to the philosophy of idealism. 
 
And only by tracing his rise, fall and revival as an adviser to Kennedy, Nelson Rockefeller and, finally, Richard Nixon can we appreciate the magnitude of his contribution to the theory of diplomacy, grand strategy and nuclear deterrence. 
 
Drawing not only on Kissinger's hitherto closed private papers but also on documents from more than a hundred archives around the world, this biography is Niall Ferguson's masterpiece. Like his classic two-volume history of the House of Rothschild, Kissinger sheds dazzling new light on an entire era.

I acquired valuable knowledge, elegantly conveyed

The book illustrates just what an extraordinary human being Kissinger is

this is a superb history of the modern world as well as a biography of Kissinger... Ferguson's tour de force shows that because Kissinger was a refugee from horror he understood from the day he first saw the Statue of Liberty that US engagement is vital to the peaceful development of the world

Ferguson is undoubtedly persuasive in presenting the young Kissinger as a man of ideals as well as ideas.  His advantage as the authorised biographer, deployed with full force, has been access to a vast mass of previously unseen private correspondence that reveals his subject as nothing like the calucating cold fish of legend

With his usual meticulous research, Ferguson is master of all his work surveys. At least as important, he writes in an unobtrusive but compelling style that carries the reader along with unforced ease. Even on its own, the first volume of Ferguson's life of Kissinger is a great work about a great man by - it has to be admitted - a great historian. It should be read, and enjoyed, by every serious student of the history of our times

For big, bold and compelling, it is impossible to ignore Kissinger - 1923-1968: the idealist (Allen Lane), the first volume of Niall Ferguson's biography of Henry Kissinger, which asks us to reconsider America's best-known "realist" as more Kantian than Machiavellian, more Castlereagh than Meternich, at least up to 1968, when President Nixon first granted the Harvard academic high office.

Some might question whether Ferguson really needs 1000 pages to tell half of Kissinger's life. Other will revel in the wealth of detail on this most controversial of American statesman

a formidably detailed, closely argued study of the making of one of the giants of 20th-century foreign policy

No American statesman has been as revered and as reviled as Henry Kissinger. Hailed by some as the "indispensable man", whose advice has been sought by every president from John F. Kennedy to George W. Bush, Kissinger has also attracted immense hostility from critics who have cast him as an amoral Machiavellian - the ultimate cold-blooded "realist". 
 
In this remarkable book, the first of two volumes, Niall Ferguson has created an extraordinary panorama of Kissinger's world, and a paradigm-shifting reappraisal of the man. Drawing not only on Kissinger's hitherto closed private papers but also on documents from more than a hundred archives around the world, this biography is Niall Ferguson's masterpiece. Like his classic two-volume history of the House of Rothschild, Kissinger sheds dazzling new light on an entire era.

Somme And Ancre, 1916

The Middle Parts of Fortune

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A moving, raw and powerful novel about fighting on the front - 'The finest and noblest book of men in war that I have ever read' (Ernest Hemingway) 
 
Bourne is a private fighting on the front. He is under pressure to accept a commission and become an officer, but he prefers to be among the ranks, drawn into the universal struggle for survival in a world gone mad. 
 
Manning's startling work is unlike any other First World War novel in its portrayal of the lives of ordinary British soldiers: the trauma of the Somme; the moments of bloodlust; the camaraderie, rivalry, alcohol and boredom. Considered obscene for its language and previously published in censored form as Her Privates We, The Middle Parts of Fortune appears here in its raw, unexpurgated version.

Outstanding. Almost certainly the finest work of its kind to emerge from the war

I read it over once each year to remember how things really were

The finest novel to come out of the First World War

How Institutions Decay and Economies Die

The Great Degeneration

The decline of the West is something that has long been prophesied. Symptoms of decline are all around us today: slowing growth, crushing debts, ageing populations. But what exactly is amiss with Western civilization? The answer, Niall Ferguson argues, is that the institutions that were once the four pillars of Western society - representative government, the free market, the rule of law and civil society - are degenerating. 
 
 The Great Degeneration is a powerful indictment of an era of negligence and complacency. To stop us frittering away the institutional inheritance of centuries, Ferguson warns, will take heroic leadership and radical reform. 
 
 'A refreshing perspective on the economic decline of advanced countries and the origins of the crisis' Samuel Brittan, Financial Times 
 
 'He writes with splendid panache and a seemingly effortless, debonair wit' The Times 
 
 'One of the most incisive writers of history, politics and economics today' Sunday Telegraph 
 
 'Niall Ferguson has transformed the intellectual landscape' Economist

Brilliantly written, full of wit and virtuosity, stuffed with memorable lines and gorgeous bits of information.  A great read

A dazzling history of Western ideas ... epic

This is sharp.  It feels urgent.  Ferguson... twists his knife with great literary brio

A masterpiece ... fascinating facts burst like fireworks on every page

Brings history alive for the reader with a dazzling knowledge ... peerless

History's Age of Hatred

The War of the World

The beginning of the twentieth century saw human civilization at its most enlightened, well-educated, globalized and wealthy. What turned it into a bloodbath? 
 
Niall Ferguson re-tells the story of history's most savage century as a continual war that raged for 100 years. From the plains of Poland to the killing fields of Cambodia, he reveals how economic boom-and-bust, decaying empires and, above all, poisonous ideas of race led men to treat each other as aliens. It was an age of hatred that ended with the twilight, not the triumph, of the West. And, he shows, it could happen all over again. 
 
'A heartbreaking, serious and thoughtful survey of human evil that is utterly fascinating and dramatic' Simon Sebag Montefiore, The New York Times 
 
'Unputdownable, controversial, compelling' Independent on Sunday 
 
'The grenade lobbed into the cosy tea party of received wisdom' Max Hastings 
 
'A big, bold and brilliantly belligerent book' Sunday Telegraph 
 
'History at its most controversial ... no one can afford to overlook it' Allan Mallinson 
 
'Hums with energy, quotable insights and pithy summaries' Observer 
 
'Gripping' Tristram Hunt

A heartbreaking, serious and thoughtful survey of human evil that is utterly fascinating and dramatic

The grenade lobbed into the cosy tea party of received wisdom

A big, bold and brilliantly belligerent book

History at its most controversial ... no one can afford to overlook it

Hums with energy, quotable insights and pithy summaries

The world at the beginning of the 20th century seemed for most of its inhabitants stable and relatively benign. Globalizing, booming economies married to technological breakthroughs seemed to promise a better world for most people. Instead, the 20th century proved to be overwhelmingly the most violent, frightening and brutalized in history with fanatical, often genocidal warfare engulfing most societies between the outbreak of the First World War and the end of the Cold War. What went wrong? How did we do this to ourselves? The War of the World comes up with compelling, fascinating answers. It is Niall Ferguson's masterpiece.

The Rise and Fall of the American Empire

Colossus

A prescient and provocative history of America's role on the world stage

Is America the new world empire? Presidents from Lincoln to Bush may have denied it but, as Niall Ferguson's brilliant and provocative book shows, the US is in many ways the greatest imperial power of all time. What's more, it always has been an empire, expanding westwards throughout the nineteenth century and rising to global dominance in the twentieth. But is today's American colossus really equipped to play Atlas, bearing the weight of the world on its shoulders? The United States, Ferguson reveals, is an empire running on empty, weakened by chronic defecits of money, manpower and political will. When the New Rome falls, he warns, its collapse may come from within. 
 
'One of the timeliest and most topical books to have appeared in recent years' Literary Review 
 
'Yet another tour de force from a writer who displays all his usual gifts of forceful polemic, unconventional intelligence and elegant prose ... guaranteed to spark fierce debate' Irish Times 
 
'A bravura exploration of why Americans are not cut out to be imperialists but nonetheless have an empire. Vigorous, substantive, and worrying' Timothy Garton Ash

Colossus confirms Niall Ferguson's standing as one of the most incisive writers of history, politics and economics today

One of the timeliest and most topical books to have appeared in recent years

Yet another tour de force from a writer who displays all his usual gifts of forceful polemic, unconventional intelligence and elegant prose ... guaranteed to spark fierce debate

A bravura exploration of why Americans are not cut out to be imperialists but nonetheless have an empire. Vigorous, substantive, and worrying

Is America the new world empire? Presidents from Lincoln to Bush may have denied it but, as Niall Ferguson's brilliant and provocative book shows, the US is in many ways the greatest imperial power of all time. What's more, it always has been an empire, expanding westwards throughout the nineteenth century and rising to global dominance in the twentieth. But is today's American colossus really equipped to play Atlas, bearing the weight of the world on its shoulders? The United States, Ferguson reveals, is an empire running on empty, weakened by chronic defecits of money, manpower and political will. When the New Rome falls, he warns, its collapse may come from within. 
 
'One of the timeliest and most topical books to have appeared in recent years' Literary Review 
 
'Yet another tour de force from a writer who displays all his usual gifts of forceful polemic, unconventional intelligence and elegant prose ... guaranteed to spark fierce debate' Irish Times 
 
'A bravura exploration of why Americans are not cut out to be imperialists but nonetheless have an empire. Vigorous, substantive, and worrying' Timothy Garton Ash

The Pity of War

The First World War killed around eight million men and bled Europe dry. In this provocative book Niall Ferguson asks: was the sacrifice worth it? Was it all really an inevitable cataclysm and were the Germans a genuine threat? Was the war, as is often asserted, greeted with popular enthusiasm? Why did men keep on fighting when conditions were so wretched? Was there in fact a death wish abroad, driving soldiers to their own destruction? The war, he argues, was a disaster - but not for the reasons we think. Far worse than a tragedy, it was the greatest error of modern history. 
 
'The most challenging and provocative analysis of the First World War to date' Ian Kershaw 
 
'Must take a permanent place at the top of the War's historiography. It is one of the very few books whose own scale matches that of the events it describes' Alan Clark, Daily Telegraph 
 
'Possibly the most important book to appear in years both on the origins of the First World War ... Ferguson can confidently claim to have inherited A. J. P. Taylor's mantle' Paul Kennedy, New York Review of Books 
 
'At one massive stroke, Niall Ferguson has transformed the intellectual landscape' Economist

The most challenging and provocative analysis of the First World War to date

Must take a permanent place at the top of the War's historiography. It is one of the very few books whose own scale matches that of the events it describes

Brilliant and stimulating ... radical, readable and convincing

Possibly the most important book to appear in years both on the origins of the First World War ... Ferguson can confidently claim to have inherited A. J. P. Taylor's mantle

At one massive stroke, Niall Ferguson has transformed the intellectual landscape

The controversial revisionist history of World War I that made Niall Ferguson's name 
 
The First World War killed around eight million men and bled Europe dry. More than any other event, it made the twentieth century. In this boldly conceived book and provocative, aimed to appeal not only to students but also to the general reader, Niall Ferguson explodes many of the myths surrounding the war. 
 
Niall Ferguson is Herzog Professor of Financial History at the Stern School of Business, New York University, Visiting Professor of History, Oxford University and Senior Research Fellow, Jesus College, Oxford. His other books for Penguin include Empire, The Cash Nexus, Colossus, The War of the World, Virtual History, High Financier and Civilization.

The Lives and Time of Siegmund Warburg

High Financier

This is the extraordinary story of Siegmund Warburg: the refugee from Nazi Germany who restored the Blitz-shattered City of London as the world's preeminent international financial centre. In recounting how this brilliant, scholarly man brought wit, passion and, above all, high ethical standards to the world of finance, Niall Ferguson shows how his meticulous methods were the antithesis of the debt-fuelled, speculative banking of our times. 
 
'A fascinating portrait ... Beautifully paced, dramatically subtle and psychologically shrewd ... Warburg is an emblem of money as it ought to be, and now isn't' Bryan Appleyard, New Statesman 
 
'Extensively researched and beautifully written' Peter Stormonth Darling, Spectator 
 
'Ferguson's account of Warburg's life not only reveals a prophet of European unification and, later, globalization, but a banker from a more responsible (and civilised) era' Peter Mandelson, Daily Telegraph, Books of the Year 
 
'A timely, original and engaging biography' Sathnam Sanghera, The Times 
 
'Financially literate, extremely thorough, deploying dazzling breadth of cultural reference ... Ferguson has produced a fine historical biography. He has also reminded us, regrettably, that Warburg has no peer in the financial world today' Simon Shaw, Mail on Sunday

Beautifully paced, dramatically subtle and psychologically shrewd, this is Ferguson at his finest

Ferguson is a talented writer, capable of grace and insight, but it is his ability as a historian that shows most strongly in High Financier

Its many finance lessons aside, High Financier is a pleasure to read simply as a work of literary skill. It is not only prodigiously researched but also splendidly written-clear and vivid and precise, perhaps even of enough merit to satisfy a word-stickler like Siegmund Warburg

A timely, original and engaging biography of Siegmund Warburg

This book is both a notable contribution to economic history and a fascinating portrait

In this groundbreaking biography, based on more than 10,000 hitherto unavailable letters and diary entries, Niall Ferguson returns to his roots as a financial historian to tell the story of the extraordinary Siegmund Warburg. 
 
A refugee from Hitler's Germany, Warburg rose to become the dominant figure in the post-war City of London and one of the architects of European financial integration. Seared by events in the 1930s, when the long-established Warburg bank was first almost destroyed by the Depression and then 'Aryanized' by the Nazis, Warburg was determined that his own bank would learn from the past and contribute to the economic recovery of Britain, the unity of Western Europe and the birth of globalization. 
 
Siegmund Warburg was a complex and ambivalent man, as much a psychologist, politician and actor-manager as a banker. In High Financier Niall Ferguson reveals Warburg's idiosyncracies but above all he recaptures the meticulous business methods and strict ethical code that set Warburg apart from the mere speculators and traders who inhabit today's financial world.

Alternatives and Counterfactuals

Virtual History

Edited by Niall Ferguson, Virtual History applies 'counterfactual' arguments to decisive moments in modern history. 
 
What if Britain had stayed out of the First World War? 
What if Germany had invaded Britain in 1940? 
What if Nazi Germany had defeated the Soviet Union? 
How would England look if there had been no Cromwell? 
What if there had been no American Revolution? 
And what if John F. Kennedy had lived? 
 
In this acclaimed book, leading historians from Andrew Roberts to Michael Burleigh challenge the complacency of traditional accounts, exploring what might have been if nine of the most decisive moments in modern history had never happened. 
 
'Quite brilliant, inspiring for the layman and an enviable tour de force for the informed reader ... A wonderful book ... lucid, exciting and easy to read' - Literary Review 
 
'Ferguson constructs an entire scenario starting with Charles I's defeat of the Covenanters, running through three revolutions that did not happen and climaxing with the collapse of the West, ruled by an Anglo-American empire, in the face of a mighty transcontinental, tsarist Russian imperium ... A welcome, optimistic assault on an intellectual heresy' - Sunday Times 
 
'A talented and imaginative team who tackle with counterfactual verve a series of turning points' - Daily Telegraph

Quite brilliant, inspiring for the layman and an enviable tour de force for the informed reader ... A wonderful book ... lucid, exciting and easy to read

Ferguson constructs an entire scenario starting with Charles I's defeat of the Covenanters, running through three revolutions that did not happen and climaxing with the collapse of the West, ruled by an Anglo-American empire, in the face of a mighty transcontinental, tsarist Russian imperium ... A welcome, optimistic assault on an intellectual heresy

A talented and imaginative team who tackle with counterfactual verve a series of turning points

What if Britain had stayed out of the First World War? What if Germany had won the Second? How would England look if there had been no Cromwell? What would the world be like if Communism had never collapsed? And what if John F. Kennedy had lived? 
 
In this acclaimed book, leading historians from Andrew Roberts to Michael Burleigh explore what might have been if nine of the most decisive moments in modern history had never happened.

[Praise for The Ascent of Money] Beautifully written... Breathtakingly clever

[Praise for The Ascent of Money] The tales he tells of boom and bust, of triumph and disaster, of bubbles that inflate... are the very essence of financial history

[Praise for The Ascent of Money]  An often enlightening and enjoyable tour through the underside of great events, a lesson in how the most successful great powers have always been underpinned by smart money

DAILY TELEGRAPH BOOKS OF THE YEAR 
 
If in the year 1411 you had been able to circumnavigate the globe, you would have been most impressed by the dazzling civilizations of the Orient. The Forbidden City was under construction in Ming Beijing; in the Near East, the Ottomans were closing in on Constantinople. 
 
By contrast, England would have struck you as a miserable backwater ravaged by plague, bad sanitation and incessant war. The other quarrelsome kingdoms of Western Europe - Aragon, Castile, France, Portugal and Scotland - would have seemed little better. As for fifteenth-century North America, it was an anarchic wilderness compared with the realms of the Aztecs and Incas. The idea that the West would come to dominate the Rest for most of the next half millennium would have struck you as wildly fanciful. And yet it happened. 
 
What was it about the civilization of Western Europe that allowed it to trump the outwardly superior empires of the Orient? The answer, Niall Ferguson argues, was that the West developed six "killer applications" that the Rest lacked: competition, science, democracy, medicine, consumerism and the work ethic. The key question today is whether or not the West has lost its monopoly on these six things. If so, Ferguson warns, we may be living through the end of Western ascendancy. 
 
Civilization takes readers on their own extraordinary journey around the world - from the Grand Canal at Nanjing to the Topkapi Palace in Istanbul; from Machu Picchu in the Andes to Shark Island, Namibia; from the proud towers of Prague to the secret churches of Wenzhou. It is the story of sailboats, missiles, land deeds, vaccines, blue jeans and Chinese Bibles. It is the defining narrative of modern world history.

The abridged, downloadable audiobook edition of Niall Ferguson's comprehensive The War of the World, read by Sean Barrett. 
 
The world at the beginning of the 20th century seemed for most of its inhabitants stable and relatively benign. Globalizing, booming economies married to technological breakthroughs seemed to promise a better world for most people. Instead, the 20th century proved to be overwhelmingly the most violent, frightening and brutalized in history with fanatical, often genocidal warfare engulfing most societies between the outbreak of the First World War and the end of the Cold War. What went wrong? How did we do this to ourselves? The War of the World comes up with compelling, fascinating answers. It is Niall Ferguson's masterpiece.

Money and Politics in Modern History, 1700-2000

The Cash Nexus

Modern history shows that a nation's success largely depends on the way it manages its money. But where do money and politics meet? From 1700 to the present day, Niall Ferguson offers a bold and original analysis of the evolution of today's economic and political landscape. Far from being driven by the profit motive alone, our recent history, as Ferguson makes brilliantly clear, has also been made by potent and often conflicting human impulses - sex, violence and the desire for power. 
 
 In this dazzling, powerful and controversial explanation of modern world history and the fundamental force that lurks behind it all, Niall Ferguson answers the big questions about finance and its crucial place in bringing happiness and despair, warfare and welfare, boom and crash to nations buffeted by the onward march of history. 
 
 'A marvellous combination of persuasion and provocation ... The Cash Nexus has enough ideas for a dozen books' Martin Daunton, History Today 
 
 'The Cash Nexus is ... packed with intriguing arguments and controversial propositions ... [an] outstanding book' Frank McLynn, Independent 
 
 'Ferguson is one of the most technically accomplished historians writing today ... The Cash Nexus offers an important corrective to the naïve story of economic growth' Robert Skidelsky, New York Review of Books

Generations of historians have shied away from the truth behind the cliche: money makes the world go around. In the same style and manner that made 'The Pity of War' an international bestseller, Niall Ferguson answers the big questions about financeand its crucial place in bringing happiness and despair, warfare and welfare, boom and crash to nations buffeted by the onward march of history. Starting in 1700 and ending today, THE CASH NEXUS is a dazzling, powerful and controversial explanation of modern world history and the fundamental force that lurks behind it all.

The World's Banker 1849-1998

The House of Rothschild

This second volume of Niall Ferguson's acclaimed, landmark history of  the legendary Rothschild banking dynasty concludes his myth-breaking  portrait of one of the most powerful and fascinating families of modern  times. With all the depth, clarity and drama with which he traced the  Rothschild's ascent, Ferguson shows how their power waned as conflicts  from Crimea to the Second World War repeatedly threatened the stability  of their worldwide empire, and how their failure to establish themselves  successfully in the United States would prove fateful. At once a  classic family saga and a major work of economic, social and political  history, this is the definitive biography of some of the most powerful  financiers of recent times.

This second volume of Niall Ferguson&rsquo;s acclaimed, landmark history of the legendary Rothschild banking dynasty concludes his myth-breaking portrait of one of the most powerful and fascinating families of modern times. With all the depth, clarity and drama with which he traced the Rothschild&rsquo;s ascent, Ferguson shows how their power waned as conflicts from Crimea to the Second World War repeatedly threatened the stability of their worldwide empire, and how their failure to establish themselves successfully in the United States would prove fateful. At once a classic family saga and a major work of economic, social and political history, this is the definitive biography of some of the most powerful financiers of recent times.

Money's Prophets 1798-1848

In his rich and nuanced portrait of the remarkable, elusive Rothschild  family, Oxford scholar and bestselling author Niall Ferguson uncovers  the secrets behind the family's phenomenal economic success. He reveals  for the first time the details of the family's vast political network,  which gave it access to and influence over many of the greatest  statesmen of the age. And he tells a family saga, tracing the importance  of unity and the profound role of Judaism in the lives of a dynasty  that rose from the confines of the Frankfurt ghetto and later used its  influence to assist oppressed Jews throughout Europe. A definitive work  of impeccable scholarship with a thoroughly engaging narrative, 'The  House of Rothschild' is a biography of the rarest kind, in which  mysterious and fascinating historical figures finally spring to life.

In his rich and nuanced portrait of the remarkable, elusive Rothschild family, Oxford scholar and bestselling author Niall Ferguson uncovers the secrets behind the family's phenomenal economic success. He reveals for the first time the details of the family's vast political network, which gave it access to and influence over many of the greatest statesmen of the age. And he tells a family saga, tracing the importance of unity and the profound role of Judaism in the lives of a dynasty that rose from the confines of the Frankfurt ghetto and later used its influence to assist oppressed Jews throughout Europe. A definitive work of impeccable scholarship with a thoroughly engaging narrative, &lsquo;The House of Rothschild&rsquo; is a biography of the rarest kind, in which mysterious and fascinating historical figures finally spring to life.

Niall Ferguson

Magisterial reach ... immensely readable ... Ferguson [applies] his prodigious intellect to placing the present pandemic on a wider historic canvas.

This is not just about a virus but a collision of politics, panic, digital media, human behaviour and incompetence. Niall Ferguson's Doom looks at each of these aspects, putting them into historical perspective in a book of dazzling range and rigour.

Niall Ferguson's Doom is often insightful, productively provocative and downright brilliant.

A superb history of the lost art of handling a crisis.

Stimulating ... Each chapter of this thought-provoking book is worth reading for the ideas, perceptiveness and well-told stories of landmark events ... It's a useful reminder that what may feel like having unprecedented restrictions imposed on our lives today is nothing new... readers will find much to relish.

Elegant, pacey, gripping ... a wealth of deep research.

Doom covers an impressive sweep of history at a lively narrative clip and weaves a lot of disparate strands together into an engaging picture.

Timely and refreshing ... An informative, amusing and thought-provoking read that is full of steadying good sense for these troubled times.

Performs a crucial public service ... Doom is far more than just a page-turner, though that it certainly is: it's that most precious of things in a history book - an account of the past that truly helps us understand where we are today.

Disasters are inherently hard to predict. But when catastrophe 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 the responses of many developed countries to a new pathogen from China were badly bungled. Why? 
 
While populist rulers certainly performed poorly in the face of the pandemic, Niall Ferguson argues that more profound pathologies were at work - pathologies already visible in our responses to earlier disasters. 
 
Drawing from multiple disciplines, including economics and network science, Doom: The Politics of Catastrophe offers not just a history but a general theory of disaster. As Ferguson shows, governments must learn to become less bureaucratic if we are to avoid the impending doom of irreversible decline.

Niall Ferguson

Praise for Doom: The Politics of Catastrophe

Magisterial reach ... immensely readable ... Ferguson [applies] his prodigious intellect to placing the present pandemic on a wider historic canvas.

This is not just about a virus but a collision of politics, panic, digital media, human behaviour and incompetence. Niall Ferguson's Doom looks at each of these aspects, putting them into historical perspecti ...

Niall Ferguson's Doom is often insightful, productively provocative and downright brilliant.

Magisterial reach ... immensely readable ... Ferguson [applies] his prodigious intellect to placing the present pandemic on a wider historic canvas.

This is not just about a virus but a collision of politics, panic, digital media, human behaviour and incompetence. Niall Ferguson's Doom looks at each of these aspects, putting them into historical perspecti ...

Niall Ferguson's Doom is often insightful, productively provocative and downright brilliant.

Magisterial reach ... immensely readable ... Ferguson [applies] his prodigious intellect to placing the present pandemic on a wider historic canvas.

This is not just about a virus but a collision of politics, panic, digital media, human behaviour and incompetence. Niall Ferguson's Doom looks at each of these aspects, putting them into historical perspecti ...

Niall Ferguson's Doom is often insightful, productively provocative and downright brilliant.

Books by Niall Ferguson

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