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Niall Ferguson Biography

Niall Campbell Ferguson (/ˈniːl/; born 18 April 1964) is a British historian and political commentator. He is currently a senior research fellow at Jesus College, Oxford, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University and visiting professor at the New College of the Humanities. Previously, he was also the Laurence Tisch Professor of History at Harvard University. Ferguson writes and speaks about international history, economic and financial history, and British and American imperialism. He is known for his provocative, contrarian views. Ferguson's books include Empire: How Britain Made the Modern World, The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World and Civilization: The West and the Rest, all of which he has presented as Channel 4 television series.

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Niall Ferguson Quotes

So much of liberalism in its classical sense is taken for granted in the west today and even disrespected. We take freedom for granted, and because of this we don't understand how incredibly vulnerable it is.

Taken, Today, West, Incredibly, Freedom

Empires, essentially, create order. In their absence, you don't end up with lots of happy, little nation-states full of people sitting around campfires singing John Lennon's "Imagine. " What you end up with is civil war, anarchy.

Create, Imagine, Order, People, Singing, War

I can't imagine having a conversation about 'Celebrity Big Brother' in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Brother, Massachusetts, Imagine, Big, Cambridge

It's all very well for us to sit here in the west with our high incomes and cushy lives, and say it's immoral to violate the sovereignty of another state. But if the effect of that is to bring people in that country economic and political freedom, to raise their standard of living, to increase their life expectancy, then don't rule it out.

Country, People, Political, Raise, State, West

American Empire- it is an empire that lacks the drive to export its capital, its people and its culture to those backward regions which need them most urgently and which, if they are neglected, will breed the greatest threats to its security. It is an empire, in short, that dare not speak its name. It is an empire in denial.

Dare, Denial, Name, Names, Needs, People

It’s our generation that is witnessing the end of Western predominance. The average American used to be more than 20 times richer than the average Chinese. Now it’s just five times, and soon it will be 2. 5 times.

Average, Chinese, Our Generation, Richer, Times, Witnessing

All empires have depended on local legitimacy and local collaboration; they are not based primarily on coercion. An imperial rule that relies wholly on coercion can't endure. It's too expensive.

Collaboration, Coercion, Empires, Expensive, Rule

In the financial sector, those whom the gods want to destroy they first teach math.

Destroy, Financial, Firsts, Math, Teach, Want

I refuse to accept that Western civilization is like some hopeless old version of Microsoft DOS, doomed to freeze, then crash. I still cling to the hope that the United States is the Mac to Europe's PC, and that if one part of the West can successfully update and reboot itself, it's America.

America, Civilization, Europe, Mac, States

Oral history is a recipe for complete misrepresentation because almost no one tells the truth, even when they intend to.

History, Misrepresentation, Oral, Recipes, Telling The Truth, Truth

The Armenian genocide showed what could happen when empires were beaten into nations.

History, Empires, Genocide, Showed, Happen

Today, the average Korean works a thousand hours more a year than the average German. A thousand. . . . That is the end of the Great Divergence.

Average, Inspiration, Motivation, Thousand, Today, Year

In the old days it would have been a relatively simple matter to have checked Hitler's territorial ambitions. All you'd have needed would have been the 1914 combination of Britain, France and Russia. Indeed, if such an alliance had acted decisively to defend Czechoslovakia in 1938, Hitler might even have been overthrown by his own military. But it was not to be.

Military, Ambition, Simple, Decisively, France

From the earliest days, the Rothschilds appreciated the importance of proximity to politicians, the men who determined not only the extent of budget deficits but also the domestic and foreign policies.

Appreciated, Determined, Domestic, Men, Politicians, World

If young men have jobs - or the prospects of jobs - they are less likely to take up arms, they are less likely to join the resistance.

Jobs, Men, Arms, Resistance, Prospects, Take

When I first came to Oxford, I struggled to feel comfortable in an Anglican, public school-dominated institution.

Came, Firsts, Institution, Oxford, School, Struggled

If the financial system has a defect, it is that it reflects and magnifies what we human beings are like. Money amplifies our tendency to overreact, to swing from exuberance when things are going well to deep depression when they go wrong. Booms and busts are products, at root, of our emotional volatility.

Amplifies, Busts, Emotional, Magnifies, Roots, Swings

In Stalin's Russia racial persecution was often disguised as class warfare. More than 1. 5 million members of ethnic minorities died as a result of forced resettlement.

Russia, Class, History, Result, Resettlement

The Japanese Co-Prosperity Zone began as a racist utopia and ended as a cross between an abbatoir, a plantation and a brothel.

History, Japanese, Plantation, Prosperity, Racist, Zone

The law of unintended consequences is the only real law of history.

Real, Law, History, Unintended

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