But the division made, it gives a structure that allows Ferguson to do what he does best, which is to jump around history taking fascinating empirical facts from one place, compelling anecdotes from another, and pulling it all together into a powerful fast-paced narrative. At the start of his book, Ferguson concedes that his all-encompassing dichotomy between hierarchies and networks is an “over-simplification”, but he contends that it is a useful starting point. The Square and Tower: Networks, Hierarchies and the Struggle for Global Power is a book by Niall Ferguson, published in 2018 by Penguin Books, where he explains how those at the top of the towers of power have been overstated and the influence of "the social networks down below, in the town squares" has been underestimated. The Square and the Tower is published by Allen Lane. The Square and the Tower in addition to being provocative history, may prove to be a bellwether work of the Internet Age.” —Christian Science Monitor "Niall Ferguson has again written a brilliant book. The Square And The Tower (a reference to the center of the medieval city of Siena in Italy) will certainly not be the only attempt to reckon with our contemporary world's place in history, but it will definitely be considered one of the more thought-provoking and provocative. Such social groupings can, to some extent, be analysed with the tools of network science, which is used to study communications technologies, ecosystems and all manner of connected things. Whether or not the concept of networks in general can illuminate history quite as much as Ferguson thinks, he does a depressingly good job of evoking the dangers posed by our reliance on electronic networks. Ferguson plausibly claims that Trump could not have become president “without harnessing social networks through online platforms”, but it is also true that he rose to prominence in the first place on old-fashioned television. The Tower is vertical, the Square horizontal. . The important lesson of “The Square and the Tower” is that the existence of a network, or network effects for that matter, should be the beginning not the end of the analysis. Ferguson’s breadth of learning is often impressive, but by the end of the book I was little more secure in my understanding of what ​he was trying to get at than at the beginning. It was “the collective efforts of Soros’s network” that broke the pound, Ferguson writes, by which he means that the feat could not have been pulled off if other investors had not followed Soros’s lead. These … In terms of an analysis of networks and hierarchies, it does not stand as the definitive book, but rather, as Ferguson himself admits, as more of a synthesis of a … To order a copy for £18.27 (RRP £25) go to bookshop.theguardian.com or call 0330 333 6846. Like Ian Bremmer, I am a big Niall Ferguson fan. The first was from the late 15th century, after the invention of printing, to the end of the 18th century. 16 people found this helpful. Photograph: Reuters, All-seeing … a bank note displays the eye of the illuminati. Forward Observer Dispatch; REVIEW; Share this: Tweet; Email; Print; Related. The Square and the Tower is connect the dots for history lovers. His book “tells the story of the interaction between networks and hierarchies” from ancient times to the present, and argues that in two recent periods, networks have been especially important. More … Read honest and unbiased product reviews from our users. But here the dots are key historical groups (such as the Rothschild family) or figures (like Winston Churchill) and by connecting them together, Ferguson draws a big picture of how societies have been disrupted in unexpected ways. From the early 20th century onwards, similar graphs, known as “sociograms”, were used to map social relationships. The Square and the Tower: Networks, Hierarchies and the Struggle for Global Power: Ferguson, Niall: Amazon.sg: Books That premise, set out in the first 50 pages of the book, is that by adding the formal social science of networks to the informal descriptive practice of history, we can unlock new insights. George Soros, the philanthropist and financier, appears under two headings. Governments and other hierarchies are stable, suggests the author, building on insights by Henry Kissinger, to the extent that they are flexible in the face of changing conditions. kirkus review Renowned economic historian Ferguson ( Kissinger: 1923-1968: The Idealist , 2015, etc.) Communications breakthroughs drive a centuries-long war between monolithic power and connected innovators in this sweeping conceptual history of the modern world. From the cults of ancient Rome to the dynasties of the Renaissance, from the founding fathers to Facebook, The Square and the Tower tells the story of the rise, fall and rise of networks, and shows how network theory—concepts such as clustering, degrees of separation, weak ties, contagions and phase transitions—can transform our understanding of both the past and the present. However, in The Square and the Tower, Niall Ferguson argues that networks have always been with us, from the structure of the brain to the food chain, from the family tree to freemasonry. The twenty-first century has been hailed as the Networked Age. No book written by a historian of Ferguson’s gifts is likely to disappoint, but The Square and the Tower does have one obvious weakness: it’s not at all clear that the author takes his own premise seriously. By Samuel Culper • April 16, 2018 April 24, 2018. First, as a staple of the most extreme conspiracists’ diet: he supposedly acts in concert with the fictional present-day incarnation of the 18th-century Illuminati, as well as with real clubs, such as the Bilderberg group. Select Your Cookie Preferences. Niall Ferguson’s The Square and the Tower is a caution against seeing our new, networked world as an unalloyed blessings. The problem is that there are simply too many strands and too much disparate information for a coherent thesis to emerge. NR PLUS. We just don’t know what to do about it. And “networks were the key to what happened in American politics in 2016”. The Square and the Tower: Networks and Power, from the Freemasons to Facebook Niall Ferguson. In the Sweden of Ruben Östlund’s “The Square,” what was once Stockholm’s Royal Museum is now the “X-Royal” Museum, dedicated to contemporary art and its attendant values. Mario Schlosser. Review: The Square and the Tower: Networks, Hierarchies and the Struggle for Global Power by Niall Ferguson Niall Ferguson’s bold attempt to … From the printers and preachers who made the Reformation to the freemasons who led the American Revolution, it was the networkers who disrupted the old order of popes and kings. Photograph: Alamy. The result of the Brexit referendum “was a victory for a network – and network science – over the hierarchy of the British establishment”. His latest book, The Square and Tower: Networks, Hierarchies and the Struggle for Global Power, claims to be “a whole new way of looking at the world”. To order a copy for for £21.25, go to guardianbookshop.com or call 0330 333 8646. Ferguson construes the notion of a network broadly. Cassocks and conspiracies … Ewan McGregor (in black) in Angels & Demons, the 2009 film adaptation of Dan Brown’s novel Illuminati. As he notes in the preface, conspiracy theorists see networks as hidden elites in cahoots with the established power structure, while far more often, he argues, networks disrupt the status quo. Posted 2018-01-22; filed under Books.. We control the banks, we control the country – we run the whole world!”. Far from being novel, our era is the Second Networked Age, with the personal computer in the role of the printing press. And the role of informal social networks has for a long time been a mainstay of historians of the Enlightenment – D’Holbach’s Coterie: An Enlightenment in Paris, a renowned study by Alan Kors, was published four decades ago. For it is networks that tend to innovate. From the printers and preachers who made the Reformation to the freemasons who led the American Revolution, it was the networkers who disrupted the old order of popes and kings. However, in The Square and the Tower, Niall Ferguson argues that networks have always been with us, from the structure of the brain to the food chain, from the family tree to freemasonry. the square and the tower. Indeed, such is Ferguson’s restless desire to uncover connectedness that he can sound like a conspiracy theorist, though he is at pains to distance himself from that perspective. “The Square and the Tower” will not disappoint readers who have come to expect from Ferguson ambition, erudition, originality and expansive historical panoramas. The Illuminati, a small 18th-century German order that sought to disseminate Enlightenment ideals, came to be seen – falsely – as the orchestrators of the French Revolution, and, by the modern crank tendency, as the puppet-masters behind everything. Phone orders min p&p of £1.99, Niall Ferguson interview: ‘Public life these days is a cascade of abuse’. You can … In The Great Degeneration (2013) he describes the collapse of the institutions on which the west made its success. The Square and the Tower by Niall Ferguson review – a restless tour through power The historian’s breadth of reference is impressive in this study of networks and hierarchies – … Find helpful customer reviews and review ratings for The Square and the Tower: Networks, Hierarchies and the Struggle for Global Power at Amazon.com. A few are perhaps too staccato in the telling – eight of the 60 chapters are three pages or fewer – but there are strong extended treatments of several of the subjects of Ferguson’s previous books, including Henry Kissinger (a “networker of genius”), Britain’s colonial past and the doings of the Rothschild family. NF’s central worry is that our latest networks make us vulnerable to economic and political anarchy. Review The Square and the Tower: Networks and Power, From the Freemasons to Facebook - Niall But in The Square and the TowerNiall Ferguson argues that social networks are nothing new. He writes big, muscular books with high-concept ideas that target current concerns through the prism of the past. . Throughout history, hierarchies housed in high towers have claimed to rule, but often real power has resided in the networks in the town square below. Phone orders min p&p of £1.99. Less familiar, perhaps, are the machinations of Alfred Milner, a British colonial administrator and politician, who became high commissioner of South Africa in 1897 and the subject of conspiracy theories that were partly well-founded. He sees the rise of the internet as … Another welcome vignette concerns General Sir Walter Walker, a pioneer of counter-insurgency, whose hostility to homosexuals and immigrants, and suspicions about the British prime minister, led him to “end up as fodder for the writers of sitcoms” in the 1970s. Ferguson perhaps overstates the novelty of the network approach to the past. Ferguson asserts that Trump’s “network … beat Clinton’s hierarchically organised … campaign”, but it could just as well be said that Clinton’s network was beaten by Trump’s network. If the maddest conspiracy theories were true, it would be good news for historians, too. Videos you watch may be added to the TV's watch history and influence TV recommendations. From the printers and preachers who made the Reformation to the freemasons who led the American Revolution, it was the networkers who disrupted the old order of popes and kings. But in The Square and the Tower Niall Ferguson argues that social networks are nothing new. That seems like publisher’s hyperbole. Niall Ferguson, the prolific historian and broadcaster, is no conspiracy theorist. Niall Ferguson is not the kind of historian who suffers from understatement. So what was their significance? Niall Ferguson's 'The Square & the Tower' Review | National Review. Report abuse. It’s an argument that takes in the house of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, the Cambridge Apostles, the Taiping revolt, Henry Kissinger, al-Qaida and so much else besides, right up to Twitter and Donald Trump. Far from being novel, our era is the Second Networked Age, with the computer in the role of the printing press. The historian’s breadth of reference is impressive in this study of networks and hierarchies – but his conclusions are underwhelming, Last modified on Wed 21 Mar 2018 23.50 GMT. I love his work on not only western civilization, money and previous world wars, but also his contrarian way of viewing the world. Throughout history, hierarchies housed in high towers have claimed to rule, but often real power has resided in the networks in the town square below. They would have rather an easy job, because wars, revolutions and economic crashes could be explained simply by exposing the cabals that engineered them. 'The Square and the Tower' gains in fascination as it tells its stories, considering networks ranging from the Mafia to the Soviet Union of Stalin. Magazine February 19, 2018, Issue. The Square and the Tower stands as another addition to the expanding literature trying to explain the direction in which the world is heading. But it stands as the basis for his case about the ambiguous, not always progressive nature of networks. Since he regards the Reformation, the birth of modern science and indeed the whole Enlightenment as “network-based revolutions”, one has to wonder if the notion of a network is being overstretched. Niall Ferguson: a powerful, fast-paced narrative. Helpful . Most of the tale that Ferguson has to tell, though, is recounted as conventional narrative history rather than applied network theory, and is none the worse for that. . . His baffled friends protest: “Why are you looking at that rubbish? Book Review – The Square and the Tower. He now studies intelligence and warfare. The Square and the Tower: Networks and Power, from the Freemasons to Facebook User Review - Publishers Weekly. Samuel Culper is a former Intelligence NCO and contractor. . “The Square” is ultimately a long version of Christian’s rambling apology, ostentatiously smart, maybe too much so for its own good, but ultimately complacent, craven and clueless. . That’s okay, though, because it is superbly written. Ferguson doesn’t really explain, other than to say that they were an example of the intellectual networks that were “an integral part of the complex historical process that led Europe from Enlightenment to Revolution to Empire”. A summary won’t get the job done for you. I don’t usually give books that long, but I’ve enjoyed lots of Ferguson’s writing before, and I wanted to see where this one was going. In The Square and the Tower by Niall Ferguson is published by Allen Lane (£25). The study of networks is not only all the rage in our “hooked up” era but, as Ferguson acknowledges, several historians and plenty of sociologists have been this way before. Human history (and NF’s book) is filled with examples of networks and hierarchies, many worth celebrating and equally many worth decrying. Anthony Gottlieb’s latest book is The Dream of Enlightenment: The Rise of Modern Philosophy. Tom, Zee, Roy, & Mike Take a look at a Dune themed deck building worker placement game from the designers of Clank! draws on insights from network theory to examine disruptions across time. For Ferguson, Walker’s military triumphs in the jungles of Borneo and Malaya were examples of the success of “decentralised decision-making” and “networked warfare”. But in this one, the news is all good. During the intervening years, from the late 1790s to the late 1960s, he reckons that hierarchical, centralised institutions reasserted their hold: he regards totalitarian regimes in Europe in the first half of the 20th century as prime examples of this. Between these extremes come the Jesuits, the Iberian conquistadors, European royalty in the 19th century, British abolitionists, al-Qaida, the Chinese Communist party and many more, all of whom are or were networks, in Ferguson’s expansive usage. His 2011 book Civilisation was subtitled, with a market eye on contemporary buzzwords, The Six Killer Apps of Western Power. The Square and the Tower in addition to being provocative history, may prove to be a bellwether work of the Internet Age.” —Christian Science Monitor "Niall Ferguson has again written a brilliant book. He wants to find a “middle way” between mainstream historians, who have, he thinks, underestimated the role of informal associations, and the conspiracy theorists who exaggerate the significance of such networks. From someone who is not bashful about making bold statements, this is a deeply underwhelming conclusion. An academic journal article in 2002 noted that influential work using network science to illuminate history had been published throughout the previous decade. Don’t leave networks to conspiracy theorists, argues the prolific historian in a book that ranges from the Illuminati to Brexit and Trump, Yuval Noah Harari's new book to cover global warming, God and nationalism, 'Gunsplaining' and conspiracy theories: how rightwing pundits saw the Las Vegas shooting. The second came in the wake of the information-technology revolution of the 1970s and continues to the present day. Trumped … a Facebook page promotes Hillary Clinton as president. His aim is to highlight and correct this historical oversight. Historian Ferguson (The Ascent of ... Read full review If playback doesn't begin shortly, try restarting your device. We are increasingly at risk of being coarsened, polarised and hacked, according to this Cassandra. But this time the juggernaut is audibly rolling towards us, and we know Ferguson is right. Ferguson provides a primer on the subject, though readers will have to refer to a few of his footnotes to get much meat. But in revisiting such conspiracist tales – the Illuminati and the Rothschilds, for example – he confuses as much as demystifies. His short chapters are lucid snapshots of a world history of Towers and Squares, filled with gracefully deployed learning. These can be intriguing to browse, though it is not always clear why they are there. . So does Facebook, which has over a quarter of the human race as members, many of whom seem not nearly secretive enough. The canvas is vast and there are stories for all tastes. His short chapters are lucid snapshots of a world history of Towers and Squares, filled with gracefully deployed learning. . Join nearly 9,000 people already receiving the Forward Observer … The Tower is the visible hand of order, the Square the invisible one of disruption. The Bavarian “Illuminati”, a secretive group that lasted just a decade and never had more than around 2,000 members, counts as a network. This often seems a distinction without a great – or great enough – difference. Iraq(x1)/Afghanistan(x2). The thrust of Ferguson’s argument is that the world is shaped by two distinct organisational forces: hierarchies and networks. I was four hundred pages into Niall Ferguson’s The Square and the Tower before it paid off. Penguin Press, $30 (480p) ISBN 978-0-7352-2291-5 . . Second, at greater length, Soros is featured for his exploits in the currency markets in September 1992, when his hedge funds helped to bring about a devaluation of sterling, and he walked away with a fortune. It would be odd to seek a halfway house between your professional colleagues and a bunch of paranoid obsessives; fortunately, this is not what Ferguson actually delivers. The effect is dizzying more​ than​ stimulating. . THE SQUARE AND THE TOWER is always readable, intelligent, original. The science originated with some mathematical diagrams drawn by Leonhard Euler in the 18th century, to solve a puzzle about journeys and bridges. Last modified on Mon 3 Feb 2020 12.14 GMT, In a dark joke from the early 1930s, a Jewish man is gleefully browsing Der Stürmer, a Nazi propaganda rag. The Square and the Tower: Networks and Power, from the Freemasons to Facebook by Niall Ferguson Book Review. . And how come you’re enjoying it so much?” “Because,” he answers, “if you read the Jewish papers, it is going terribly for us. The original Cassandra was not believed. Samuel Culper. For those interested in answers coming from historical examples, it is by far one of the best choices. REVIEW: The Square and the Tower: Networks and Power. In The Square and The Tower, Niall Ferguson presents us a detailed series of examinations of the struggle between networks and hierarchies in managing society since the advent of writing.A central theme of the book is “that the tension between distributed networks and hierarchical orders is as old as humanity itself.” Niall Ferguson, the prolific historian and broadcaster, is no conspiracy theorist. Most networks are hierarchical, after all, and there are few hierarchies that are not in some sense part of a wider network. Commenting has been disabled at this time but you can still. There is room for debate about that. They are pull-yourself-together warnings to the present by way of arresting historical precedent. The Square and The Tower by Niall Ferguson is an excellent analysis of the way hierarchies and networks have shaped both business and politics from the 14th century to today. Ferguson’s book sports sociograms of (among others) the characters in Hamlet, the Medicis of Florence and their friends, the trade network of the British East India Company, Voltaire and his correspondents, the inevitable Bloomsbury group and jihadi sites on Twitter. Free UK p&p over £10, online orders only. Free UK p&p over £10, online orders only. . But in his ambitious new book, The Square and the Tower, he claims that historians have paid too little attention to networks of all kinds. Some of the book’s material will be familiar to readers of recent British history, such as a lively account of Cambridge’s Conversazione Society (or “Apostles”) and the university’s Soviet spies. But in The Square and the Tower Niall Ferguson argues that social networks are nothing new. 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