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The Square and the Tower: Networks and Power, from the Freemasons to Facebook, by Niall Ferguson
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Review
“Captivating and compelling. Whether describing the surprisingly ineffective 18th century network of the mysterious Illuminati that continue to be the subject of crank conspiracy theorists or the shockingly effective 20th century network of Cambridge University spies working for the Soviets, Ferguson manages both to tell a good story and provide important insight into the specific qualities that power successful networks.” —The New York Times“Remarkably interesting . . . always surprising and always thought-provoking in the places and entities it chooses to pause and examine, everything from the Mafia to the Soviet Union of Stalin. . . . 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. . . . His short chapters are lucid snapshots of a world history of Towers and Squares, filled with gracefully deployed learning. . . . THE SQUARE AND THE TOWER is always readable, intelligent, original. You can swallow a chapter a night before sleep and your dreams will overflow with scenes of Stendhal’s The Red and the Black, Napoleon, Kissinger. In 400 pages you will have restocked your mind. Do it." —The Wall Street Journal “Ferguson reminds us the social network didn’t spring fully formed from the mind of Mark Zuckerberg; rather, it’s a persistent force in human affairs offering a novel lens on past and perplexing present.”—San Francisco Chronicle"A wide-ranging and provocative tour through the history of human connectivity, pre- and post-high tech. Ferguson also ladles out illuminating doses of networking theory and analysis of the threat that growing political and economic complexity poses to established hierarchies and institutions." —Inc.com “An engaging, provocative history of networks (and their relationships to hierarchies) from ancient times to the invention of the printing press to the pervasiveness of the personal computer. Breathtaking in its scale and scope, The Square and the Tower applies insights of network theory to (among other subjects) Portugal’s foothold in Macau, the “conquest” of the Incas, the Reformation, the Enlightenment, the American Revolution, the Industrial Revolution, World War I, Stalin’s Terror, World War II, the fall of the Soviet Union, the founding of the European Union and the Great Recession of 2008-09.”—Pittsburgh Post-Gazette“An enthralling ‘reboot’ of history from a novel perspective, spanning antiquity to the present day. . . . Like the best historians, [Ferguson] always pauses to learn from the past and anticipate the future. If only for this reason, [THE SQUARE AND THE TOWER] is well worth a read.”—Science“[Ferguson’s] typically bold rethinking of historical currents, painted on the broadest canvas, offers many stimulating insights on the tense interplay between order, oppression, freedom, and anarchy.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review“Ferguson has written a provocative and intellectually challenging work that should promote consideration and debate among academics and laypersons.” —Booklist “Renowned economic historian Ferguson draws on insights from network theory to examine disruptions across time. . . . Refreshingly evenhanded. . . . Ferguson offers a novel way of examining data . . . highly intriguing.” —Kirkus “In his sweeping, stimulating and enlightening The Square and the Tower, noted historian Niall Ferguson draws from a wide range of sources to trace the crucial role that different kinds of human networks have played throughout history… Ferguson’s superb, thought-provoking book brings these events vividly to life and will help readers view history from a unique perspective.” —BookPage"Niall Ferguson's The Square and the Tower brilliantly illuminates the great power struggle between networks and hierarchies that is raging around the world today. As a software engineer steeped in the theory and practice of networks, I was deeply impressed by this book's insights. Silicon Valley needed a history lesson and Ferguson has provided it." —Eric Schmidt, Executive Chairman of Alphabet, the parent company of Google
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About the Author
Niall Ferguson is one of the world's most renowned historians. He is the author of Paper and Iron, The House of Rothschild, The Pity of War, The Cash Nexus, Empire, Colossus, The War of the World, The Ascent of Money, High Financier, Civilization, The Great Degeneration, Kissinger, 1923-1968: The Idealist, and The Square and the Tower. He is Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and a Visiting Professor at Tsinghua University, Beijing. His many awards 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).
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Product details
Paperback: 592 pages
Publisher: Penguin Books; Reprint edition (January 22, 2019)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0735222932
ISBN-13: 978-0735222939
Product Dimensions:
5.5 x 1.2 x 8.4 inches
Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review:
3.9 out of 5 stars
110 customer reviews
Amazon Best Sellers Rank:
#239,904 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
The Square and the Tower is the rare book that is a must read, not only for armchair intellectuals like myself, but also for academics, politicians, CEOs and those in any kind of position of responsibility. I say this not because the book is always correct, or even on point, but because several of the ideas emphasized in this book are important enough that they should be considered, debated upon and ultimately deemed useful or falsified by the intelligentsia.Essentially, the core idea in this book is that the role and influence of social networks throughout history has been downplayed by historians because of their reliance on state archives which tend to stress the role of hierarchies. Because of this, the rise in the power of social networks spawned by the computer age is mistakenly thought to be an entirely new phenomenon. In fact, argues Ferguson, the struggle between networks and hierarchies is at least as old as human history.To marshal support for this argument Ferguson begins the book with a summary of network theory. He then retells the story of modernity from this perspective leading up to an ultimate chapter considering the future of human civilization. You certainly cannot say that Ferguson aims too small.There are some unresolved tensions in this narrative. Some of the chapters rely on real applications of network theory while some are more anecdotal. This is because the idea of what is a social network seems to grow more and moreexpansive. Eventually, Ferguson writes that hierarchies themselves are a type of social network. Of course, he is right in a sense, but this tends to blunt the paradigm of a dichotomy between networks and hierarchies. In addition, if every relationship between human beings is a social network then network theory does explain all of human history. But isn’t this basically then a tautology?Ferguson also goes on many tangents. For example, his vociferous arguments that the culture of Islam is a key element of Arab terrorism versus seeing terrorists as fanatics from any religion does not seem to really be central to the book’s themes.Nevertheless, Ferguson has either achieved a landmark accomplishment in the telling of history, with important consequences for our current societies, or he has overstressed the importance of networks in modern history. That is a question for professional historians to decide. To become acquainted with this perspective, to see new technologies and new forms of communication through this lens, is something all persons with some share of responsibility for society should at least consider. And, I might add, the book is fun and insightful reading for armchair intellectuals as well.
“The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles†state Marx and Engels in ‘The Communist Manifesto’. According to Niall Ferguson’s latest book - ‘The Square and the Tower. Networks, Hierarchies and the Struggle for Global Power’ – the history of all hitherto existing society is rather the history of the tension between networks and hierarchies; a fact hitherto largely ignored by historians because networks characteristically “do not leave an orderly paper trailâ€, although a subsidiary factor is that the study of networks such as the Illuminati, the Freemasons, the Rothschild family and the Bilderberg Group has been widely discredited by the ravings of conspiracy theorists.According to Ferguson there have been two periods in which networks empowered by new technology, enabling ideas to spread virally, have been massively disruptive of established hierarchical structures, namely, the late fifteenth century to the end of the eighteenth century, powered by the printing press, and from the 1970s to the present day, powered by the personal computer and the internet.There is obviously much to be said for this point of view. As Ferguson says, “Without Gutenberg, Luther might well have become just another heretic whom the Church burned at the stake, like Jan Husâ€, although doesn’t this mean that it would be better to paraphrase Marx and Engels to read that the history of all hitherto existing society is the history of new technologies? There’s also the fact that Luther would almost certainly have burnt at the stake had it not been for the protection which he received from the Saxon princes, Frederick the Wise (1483-1525) and his brother John the Constant (1468-1532). Ferguson does not mention this fact, although he does refer to the crucial role of the princes of the Schmalkaldic League (formed in 1531) in consolidating Protestant gains. As German princes can obviously be taken both to embody hierarchy within their realms and to constitute a network when they form a league, this suggests another problem with Ferguson’s thesis, namely, that whereas towers and squares are clearly sharply delineated the concepts they symbolise for Ferguson are often anything but.This is not to say that ‘The Square and the Tower’ is a bad book. On the contrary, like anything written by Ferguson it is brimming with bright ideas expressed with great flair. Ferguson - like David Cannadine - is living proof that it is possible to write prolifically, persuasively and profoundly for a popular audience. But whilst this book provides many insights and makes one consider the past in a new light I do not think its prism is sufficiently luminous to win many long-term converts.
His books always provide a logical and informative parade of ideas and characters - they require reading with focus to secure all the ideas on hand.I found that I would sit back after every 10 pages or so and ask myself how can I apply the idea just presented or where have I seen it happen - this is a book that demands you take the time and devote the mind energy to read it, it is well worth it.
It started off strong with a basic description of network theory; however, about three quarters into the book, the writing seems to be a bit meandering. The author takes a historical look at networks and hierarchies from the far past up to the present. I didn't think the book flowed very well and it seems that the author was trying to make the same point over and over with various examples. Toward the final chapters the writing seems to be more political opinion. One chapter talks about the rise of Islamic extremism but I really wasn't sure where he was going with that. I had assumed he was going to delve more into the networks and hierarchies of religious groups and religious zealotry. He didn't. It read more like an opinion piece. Overall, I believe the book was longer than it needed to be and I bet someone can write a book book on how networks where a major determinant of world history.
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