Contingency and Historical Impact

Brought to you by Wealthfront high-yield savings account, ShipStation shipping software, and Athletic Greens all-in-one nutritional supplement.

Niall Ferguson (@nfergus), MA, DPhil, FRSE, is the Milbank Family Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and a senior faculty fellow of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard. He is the author of 16 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-winning filmmaker, too, having won an International Emmy for his PBS series The Ascent of Money. His 2018 book, The Square and the Tower, was a New York Times bestseller and also adapted for television by PBS as Niall Ferguson’s Networld. In 2020 he joined Bloomberg Opinion as a columnist.

In addition, he is the founder and managing director of Greenmantle LLC, a New York-based advisory firm; a co-founder of Ualá, a Latin American financial technology company; and a trustee of the New York Historical Society, the London-based Centre for Policy Studies, and the newly founded University of Austin.

His latest book, Doom: The Politics of Catastrophe, was published last year by Penguin and was shortlisted for the Lionel Gelber Prize. 

Please enjoy!

This episode is brought to you by Wealthfront! Wealthfront is an app that helps you save and invest your money. Right now, you can earn 3.3% APY—that’s the Annual Percentage Yield—with the Wealthfront Cash Account. That’s more than fifteen times more interest than if you left your money in a savings account at the average bank, according to FDIC.gov. And when you open an account today, you’ll get an extra fifty dollar bonus with a deposit of five hundred dollars or more. Visit Wealthfront.com/Tim to get started.​

*

This episode is also brought to you by ShipStation. Do you sell stuff online? Then you know what a pain the shipping process is. ShipStation was created to make your life easier. Whether you’re selling on eBay, Amazon, Shopify, or over 100 other popular selling channels, ShipStation lets you access all of your orders from one simple dashboard, and it works with all of the major shipping carriers, locally and globally, including FedEx, UPS, and USPS. 

Tim Ferriss Show listeners get to try ShipStation free for 60 days by using promo code TIM. There’s no risk, and you can start your free trial without even entering your credit card info. Just visit ShipStation.com, click on the microphone at the TOP of the homepage, and type in “TIM”!

*

This episode is brought to you by Athletic Greens. I get asked all the time, “If you could use only one supplement, what would it be?” My answer is usually AG1 by Athletic Greens, my all-in-one nutritional insurance. I recommended it in The 4-Hour Body in 2010 and did not get paid to do so. I do my best with nutrient-dense meals, of course, but AG further covers my bases with vitamins, minerals, and whole-food-sourced micronutrients that support gut health and the immune system. 

Right now, Athletic Greens is offering you their Vitamin D Liquid Formula free with your first subscription purchase—a vital nutrient for a strong immune system and strong bones. Visit AthleticGreens.com/Tim to claim this special offer today and receive the free Vitamin D Liquid Formula (and five free travel packs) with your first subscription purchase! That’s up to a one-year supply of Vitamin D as added value when you try their delicious and comprehensive all-in-one daily greens product.

*

[05:45] How Niall's multi-faceted career has gone according to plan.

[08:00] The license to be outrageous in academia ain't what it used to be.

[14:53] High table, dregs of Château Lafite, and hyperbolic references.

[20:26] A.J.P. Taylor and the philosophy of history.

[25:00] How does a historian find an "ear" for historical resonance?

[29:48] What Niall would ask A.J.P. if they were Château Lafite drinking buddies.

[34:30] An appetite for tweed.

[36:40] Historical contingency.

[43:40] A.J.P. Taylor reading for beginners and counterfactual history.

[46:41] Dan Carlin, Elon Musk, and Gavrilo Princip.

[48:39] What Niall gets out of digging deep into historical correspondence.

[54:04] Cold War II — what can we do?

[1:10:44] Keeping Cold War II from heating up into World War III.

[1:16:37] Economic interdependence does not preclude conflict.

[1:20:02] Ways Niall is using his grasp of history to change the world for the better.

[1:26:11] How Niall's toolkit for enacting change has evolved over the years.

[1:28:55] Thoughts on fatherhood.

[1:36:15] Why someone raised as an atheist takes his kids to church.

[1:42:42] Has marriage to ex-Muslim Ayaan Hirsi Ali changed Niall's view of Western philosophy?

[1:46:22] Life under fatwa.

[1:51:00] Parting thoughts.

*

For show notes and past guests on The Tim Ferriss Show, please visit tim.blog/podcast.

For deals from sponsors of The Tim Ferriss Show, please visit tim.blog/podcast-sponsors

Sign up for Tim’s email newsletter (5-Bullet Friday) at tim.blog/friday.

For transcripts of episodes, go to tim.blog/transcripts.

Discover Tim’s books: tim.blog/books.

Follow Tim:

Twitter: twitter.com/tferriss 

Instagram: instagram.com/timferriss

YouTube: youtube.com/timferriss

Facebook: facebook.com/timferriss 

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/timferriss

Past guests on The Tim Ferriss Show include Jerry Seinfeld, Hugh Jackman, Dr. Jane Goodall, LeBron James, Kevin Hart, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Jamie Foxx, Matthew McConaughey, Esther Perel, Elizabeth Gilbert, Terry Crews, Sia, Yuval Noah Harari, Malcolm Gladwell, Madeleine Albright, Cheryl Strayed, Jim Collins, Mary Karr, Maria Popova, Sam Harris, Michael Phelps, Bob Iger, Edward Norton, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Neil Strauss, Ken Burns, Maria Sharapova, Marc Andreessen, Neil Gaiman, Neil de Grasse Tyson, Jocko Willink, Daniel Ek, Kelly Slater, Dr. Peter Attia, Seth Godin, Howard Marks, Dr. Brené Brown, Eric Schmidt, Michael Lewis, Joe Gebbia, Michael Pollan, Dr. Jordan Peterson, Vince Vaughn, Brian Koppelman, Ramit Sethi, Dax Shepard, Tony Robbins, Jim Dethmer, Dan Harris, Ray Dalio, Naval Ravikant, Vitalik Buterin, Elizabeth Lesser, Amanda Palmer, Katie Haun, Sir Richard Branson, Chuck Palahniuk, Arianna Huffington, Reid Hoffman, Bill Burr, Whitney Cummings, Rick Rubin, Dr. Vivek Murthy, Darren Aronofsky, Margaret Atwood, Mark Zuckerberg, Peter Thiel, Dr. Gabor Maté, Anne Lamott, Sarah Silverman, Dr. Andrew Huberman, and many more.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.