Niall Ferguson: The empire rebuilder
On the eve of his new television series, the formidable academic and historians' historian argues passionately that the decline and fall of empires was the true cause of the bloody mess that was the 20th century.
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You should have been born to serve the British Empire. But you are trapped inside the body of a man born in the 1960s, so what do you do? You become an ardent Thatcherite - aggressive on the battlefield and the economy. You write 'why oh why?' polemics for the Daily Mail. You eventually quit the insular mother country for the new empire across the Pond. You pour your Protestant work ethic into books, journalism and television, a medium which you never really watch. And you write a lot about empire.
Niall Ferguson seems to have been born out of his time, but is determined to make the best of it. He has a chair at Harvard, which he proclaims the best university on the planet. He has just published his latest book, The War of the World, 'the Everest of my career'. He presents an accompanying TV series, starting tomorrow, and is said to combine the brains of Simon Schama or David Starkey with the looks of Hugh Grant or Tom Cruise. He also earns a fortune. Just don't call him right wing.
There are two common assumptions about Ferguson. One is that his newspaper columns and telegenic persona, including expensive sunglasses and seductive Scottish burr, must imply a lack of intellectual bottom. The other is that he strikes a pose of contrariness for its own sake, arguing against conventional liberal wisdom, most famously by defending some aspects of imperialism, in order to shock, amaze and sell books.
He has the dubious honour of inspiring Alan Bennett's award-winning play, The History Boys, in particular the character of Irwin, a history teacher who urges his exam candidates to find a counterintuitive 'angle' and goes on to become a TV historian.
To be contrary, this might be nonsense. Ferguson is a formidable historian and esteemed academic whose first book was distinctly not pop history: Paper and Iron: Hamburg Business and German Politics in the Era of Inflation, 1897-1927. Admittedly, his friend of 15 years, Andrew Roberts, might be a little biased in calling him 'the brightest historian of his generation', but fellow historian Tristram Hunt, his unfavourable review of The War of the World notwithstanding, points out: 'You don't become a Harvard professor without being a historian of substance.'
Bennett's Irwin gives the impression that an entire career can be built on the trick of contrariness. Ferguson's career, political outlook, historical interests and even private life are steeped in the austerity, mental precision and world-changing dynamism once associated with Scotland, and in his affluent, achievement-driven upbringing in Glasgow, formerly the second city of empire.
From school came the values that would mould him: the 19th-century Scottish Calvinist capitalist ethos of the all-boys, private Glasgow Academy. 'That is how I define myself today. My values are very much of that era,' he says, adopting a fatalistic view perhaps more typical of Marxists - or Catholics.
From his extended family came engagement with politics. 'I grew up in an atmosphere of enjoyably unfettered argument.' One of his earliest memories is of his great uncle, a lifelong communist who always took holidays on the Black Sea, fiercely debating the Soviet Union with his grandfather. And from his immediate family came the intellectual rigour he would apply to history: his father was a doctor, his mother a physics teacher, as is his younger sister.
He won a scholarship to Oxford, where he failed at acting, discovered he was good at history and fell for Margaret Thatcher. 'It was obvious to me that the most intelligent people were drawn towards Thatcherism and the stupidest people were public-school lefties,' he argues.
He remains the kind of Thatcherite many loved to hate. 'I am Max Weber's Protestant work ethic, for better or for worse,' says the 42-year-old, who rises at six each day. 'I think it makes me an impossible person because I don't feel happy if I haven't done at least 10 hours' work a day. I work, therefore I am. I have no hobbies.' There appears little room for compassion for the less fortunate or those seeking a 'work-life balance', and Ferguson does nothing to dispel this cold image....
Read entire article at Observer
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You should have been born to serve the British Empire. But you are trapped inside the body of a man born in the 1960s, so what do you do? You become an ardent Thatcherite - aggressive on the battlefield and the economy. You write 'why oh why?' polemics for the Daily Mail. You eventually quit the insular mother country for the new empire across the Pond. You pour your Protestant work ethic into books, journalism and television, a medium which you never really watch. And you write a lot about empire.
Niall Ferguson seems to have been born out of his time, but is determined to make the best of it. He has a chair at Harvard, which he proclaims the best university on the planet. He has just published his latest book, The War of the World, 'the Everest of my career'. He presents an accompanying TV series, starting tomorrow, and is said to combine the brains of Simon Schama or David Starkey with the looks of Hugh Grant or Tom Cruise. He also earns a fortune. Just don't call him right wing.
There are two common assumptions about Ferguson. One is that his newspaper columns and telegenic persona, including expensive sunglasses and seductive Scottish burr, must imply a lack of intellectual bottom. The other is that he strikes a pose of contrariness for its own sake, arguing against conventional liberal wisdom, most famously by defending some aspects of imperialism, in order to shock, amaze and sell books.
He has the dubious honour of inspiring Alan Bennett's award-winning play, The History Boys, in particular the character of Irwin, a history teacher who urges his exam candidates to find a counterintuitive 'angle' and goes on to become a TV historian.
To be contrary, this might be nonsense. Ferguson is a formidable historian and esteemed academic whose first book was distinctly not pop history: Paper and Iron: Hamburg Business and German Politics in the Era of Inflation, 1897-1927. Admittedly, his friend of 15 years, Andrew Roberts, might be a little biased in calling him 'the brightest historian of his generation', but fellow historian Tristram Hunt, his unfavourable review of The War of the World notwithstanding, points out: 'You don't become a Harvard professor without being a historian of substance.'
Bennett's Irwin gives the impression that an entire career can be built on the trick of contrariness. Ferguson's career, political outlook, historical interests and even private life are steeped in the austerity, mental precision and world-changing dynamism once associated with Scotland, and in his affluent, achievement-driven upbringing in Glasgow, formerly the second city of empire.
From school came the values that would mould him: the 19th-century Scottish Calvinist capitalist ethos of the all-boys, private Glasgow Academy. 'That is how I define myself today. My values are very much of that era,' he says, adopting a fatalistic view perhaps more typical of Marxists - or Catholics.
From his extended family came engagement with politics. 'I grew up in an atmosphere of enjoyably unfettered argument.' One of his earliest memories is of his great uncle, a lifelong communist who always took holidays on the Black Sea, fiercely debating the Soviet Union with his grandfather. And from his immediate family came the intellectual rigour he would apply to history: his father was a doctor, his mother a physics teacher, as is his younger sister.
He won a scholarship to Oxford, where he failed at acting, discovered he was good at history and fell for Margaret Thatcher. 'It was obvious to me that the most intelligent people were drawn towards Thatcherism and the stupidest people were public-school lefties,' he argues.
He remains the kind of Thatcherite many loved to hate. 'I am Max Weber's Protestant work ethic, for better or for worse,' says the 42-year-old, who rises at six each day. 'I think it makes me an impossible person because I don't feel happy if I haven't done at least 10 hours' work a day. I work, therefore I am. I have no hobbies.' There appears little room for compassion for the less fortunate or those seeking a 'work-life balance', and Ferguson does nothing to dispel this cold image....