Rana: I was struck by a story that you tell quite early on in the book, Neil. You say that you were to some extent put onto this topic by a realization, perhaps at a certain age, and a certain stage in the academic career, that you were extraordinarily well connected but had no real power. Now as an academic myself, I can sympathize with having no power, even though I can't claim to be in any way well networked. What was the reason that this particular topic took you up so strongly?Neil: When I arrived at Stanford and started talking to people in Silicon Valley, which is right next door about what I do, they kind of looked quite
Niall Ferguson is the preeminent historian of the ideas that define our time. He has challenged how we think about money, power, civilisation and empires. Now he wants to reimagine history itself. Networks, he explains, are the key to history. The greatest innovators have been ‘superhubs’ of connections. The most powerful states, empires and companies have been those with the most densely networked structures. And the most transformative ideas – from the printing presses that launched the Reformation to the Freemasonry that inspired the American Revolution – have gone viral precisely because of the networks within which they spread. Our host for this conversation is historian, author and broadcaster, Rana Mitter. The audio of this live Intelligence Squared event was recorded in London in 2017.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices