[[Image:Europe subregion map UN geoschme.svg|thumb|Regions used for statistical processing purposes by the United Nations Statistics Division (Western Europe marked light blue): ]]

Western Europe is a loose term for the collection of countries in the westernmost region of the European continents, though this definition is context-dependent and carries cultural and political connotations. One definition describes Western Europe as a geographic entity — the region lying in the Western part of Europe. Another definition was created during the Cold War and used to describe the non-Communist states of Europe that were allied with the United States to some degree. For this purpose the Western European Union, a defence agreement among Western European nations during the Cold War, was created in 1948. As a result, geographically central and eastern countries that steered clear of Soviet influence during the Cold War are usually included, while western members of the former Eastern Bloc (with the exception of Eastern Germany) are excluded.

Countries described as Western European are invariably high-income developed countries, characterized by democratic political systems, mixed economies combining the free market with aspects of the welfare state, and most are members of NATO and the European Union.

The United Nations (UN) Statistics Division considers Western Europe to consist of just nine countries, although the United Nations Regional Groups include European countries from the so called UN-designated Northern and Southern Europe in its Western European and Others Group.

History

Classical antiquity and medieval origins

As Roman domain expanded, a cultural and linguistic division appeared between the mainly Greek-speaking eastern provinces which had formed the highly urbanized Hellenistic civilization. In contrast, the western territories largely adopted the Latin language. This cultural and linguistic division was eventually reinforced by the later political east-west division of the Roman Empire.

The division between these two was enhanced during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages by a number of events. The Western Roman Empire collapsed starting the Early Middle Ages. By contrast, the Eastern Roman Empire, mostly known as the Greek or Byzantine Empire, managed to survive and even to thrive for another 1000 years. The rise of the Frankish Empire in the west, and in particular the Great Schism that formally divided Eastern Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism, enhanced the cultural and religious distinctiveness between Eastern and Western Europe.

The conquest of the Byzantine Empire, center of the Eastern Orthodox Church, by the Muslim Ottoman Empire in the 15th century, and the gradual fragmentation of the Holy Roman Empire (which had replaced the Frankish Empire) led to a change of the importance of Roman Catholic/Protestant vs. Eastern Orthodox concept in Europe.

Western Europe's significant historical events include the Renaissance, the Protestant Reformation by Martin Luther and the Counter-Reformation of the Catholic Church, the Age of Enlightenment, the French Revolution and the Industrial Revolution.

Cold War

During the final stages of World War II the future of Europe was decided between the Allies in the 1945 Yalta Conference, between the British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and the Premier of the Soviet Union, Joseph Stalin.

Post-war Europe would be divided into two major spheres: the West, influenced by the United States, and the Eastern Bloc, influenced by the Soviet Union. With the onset of the Cold War, Europe was divided by the Iron Curtain.

This term had been used during World War II by German Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels and later Count Lutz Schwerin von Krosigk in the last days of the war; however, its use was hugely popularised by Winston Churchill, who used it in his famous "Sinews of Peace" address March 5, 1946 at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri:

Although some countries were officially neutral, they were classified according to the nature of their political and economical systems. This division has largely defined the popular perception and understanding of Western Europe and its borders with Eastern Europe till this day.

Eastern Europe

Eastern Europe, in the view accepted after the second World War, was mainly composed of all the European countries occupied by the Soviet army. It included the German Democratic Republic, widely known as East Germany, formed by the Soviet occupation zone of Germany. All the countries in Eastern Europe had Communist regimes imposed upon them. Most of these countries were officially independent from the Soviet Union, but the practical extent of this independence was quite limited. In some matters many of them were little more than client-states of the Soviet Union.

Currently, the borders of Eastern Europe are a topic of debate, especially because of the countries and people of post communists governments identifying themselves with Central Europe and Northern Europe.

Most of these countries were members of the military Warsaw pact and its economic twin COMECON. First and foremost was the Soviet Union (which included the modern-day territories of Russia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Belarus, Ukraine, Moldova). Other countries dominated by the Soviet Union were the German Democratic Republic, People's Republic of Poland, Czechoslovak Socialist Republic, People's Republic of Hungary, People's Republic of Bulgaria and Socialist Republic of Romania.

The Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (formed after World War II and before its later dismemberment) was not a member of the Warsaw Pact. It was a founding member of the Non-Aligned Movement, an organization created in an attempt to avoid being assigned to any of the two blocs. It was demonstratively independent from the Soviet Union for most of the Cold War period, but because of its communist regime it was widely regarded part of the ''Eastern/communist bloc''.

Socialist People's Republic of Albania broke with the Soviet Union in the early 1960s as a result of the Sino-Soviet split, aligning itself instead with China. Despite this, it had a communist regime and thus was considered part of the ''Eastern/communist bloc''.

Western Europe

During this period Western Europe was used as a reference to:

Andorra

Austria

Belgium

Denmark

Finland

France

FR Germany

Greece

Iceland

Ireland

Italy

Liechtenstein

Luxembourg

Malta

Monaco

Netherlands

Norway

Portugal

San Marino

Spain

Sweden Switzerland

United Kingdom

Vatican City

Later political developments

The world changed dramatically with the fall of the "Iron Curtain" in 1989. The Federal Republic of Germany peacefully absorbed the German Democratic Republic, leading to the German reunification. COMECON and the Warsaw Pact were dissolved, and in 1991, the Soviet Union ceased to exist. Several countries which had been part of the Soviet Union regained their full independence.

Although the term ''Western Europe'' was largely a term of the Cold War, it still remains much in use. The term is commonly used in the media and in everyday use both in "western" and other regions of Europe.

''Western Europe'' has increasingly less to do with the European Union. The 1995, 2004, and 2007 enlargements saw many post-Communist countries joining the EU, and a view that Europe is divided strictly into the West and the East is sometimes considered patronising or pejorative by many in the countries geographically located in Central Europe and the Baltic states.

United Nations

[[Image:Europe subregion map UN geoschme.svg|thumb|Regions used for statistical processing purposes by the United Nations Statistics Division (Western Europe marked light blue): ]]

The United Nations Statistics Division considers Western Europe to consist of the following nine countries, except in the case of United Nations Regional Groups, in which the term also includes northern and southern Europe:

According to the UN Statistics Division, ''the assignment of countries or areas to specific groupings is for statistical convenience and does not imply any assumption regarding political or other affiliation of countries or territories by the United Nations''.

Population of Western Europe

Countries of Western Europe as defined by the National Geographic Society.

! Name of country, with flag	! Population (2009 est.)	! Population (2000 est.)	! -/+ of Population	! Percent change	Capital (political)>Capital
					Vienna
					Brussels
					Copenhagen
					Helsinki
					Paris
					Berlin
					Athens
					Reykjavík
					Dublin
					Rome
					Amsterdam
					Oslo
					Lisbon
					Madrid
					Stockholm
					Bern
					London
Total

See also

Western European Union

Western world

First World

New Europe

Old Europe

Marshall Plan

Eastern Europe

Central Europe

Northern Europe

Southern Europe

Romano-Germanic culture

References

Sources

''The Making of Europe'', ISBN 0-14-015409-4, by Robert Bartlett

''Crescent and Cross'', ISBN 1-84212-753-5, by Hugh Bicheno

''The Normans'', ISBN 0-7524-2881-0, by Trevor Rowley

''1066 The Year of the Three Battles'', ISBN 0-7126-6672-9, by Frank McLynn

External links

The European sub-regions according to the UN

Teaching about Western Europe

Western Europe.info

Category:Regions of Europe

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Coordinates	20°34′00″N103°40′35″N
Name	Niall Ferguson
Birth date	April 18, 1964
Birth place	Glasgow, Scotland
Nationality	British
Fields	Financial and economic history
Workplaces	Harvard University Harvard Business SchoolLondon School of Economics
Alma mater	Magdalen College, Oxford
Known for	Counterfactual historyEconomic historyHistory of empire and imperialism
Influences	A J P Taylor, Kenneth Clark, Adam Smith, Karl Marx, John Maynard Keynes
Religion	Atheist
Signature
Footnotes	}}

Niall Campbell Douglas Ferguson (born April 18, 1964) is a British historian who specialises in financial and economic history, particularly hyperinflation and the bond markets, as well as the history of colonialism.

Ferguson, who was born in Glasgow, is the Laurence A. Tisch Professor of History at Harvard University as well as William Ziegler Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School, and also currently the Philippe Roman Chair in History and International Affairs at the London School of Economics. He was educated at the private Glasgow Academy in Scotland, and at Magdalen College, Oxford. During the 2008 U.S. presidential election, Ferguson advised Senator John McCain's campaign.

In the UK, Ferguson is probably best known as the author of ''Empire: How Britain Made the Modern World''. In 2008, Ferguson published ''The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World'', which he also presented as a Channel 4 television series. Both at Harvard College and at LSE, Ferguson teaches a course entitled "Western Ascendancy: The Mainsprings of Global Power from 1600 to the Present."

Early life

Ferguson was born the son of a doctor father and a physics teacher mother in Glasgow on April 18th 1964, and lived for a time near Ibrox Park. He attended The Glasgow Academy.

Ferguson cites his father as instilling in him a strong sense of self-discipline and of the moral value of work, whilst his mother encouraged his creative side. His journalist maternal grandfather encouraged him to write. Unable to decide on studying an English or a History degree at university, Ferguson cites his reading of War and Peace as persuading him towards History. Of late 1970s Glasgow, Ferguson describes "the main industries" of the city as "sectarianism and strike action".

University of Oxford

Ferguson received a Demyship (half-scholarship) at Magdalen College, Oxford, graduating with a first-class honours degree in History in 1985. He became a Thatcherite by 1982, identifying the position with "the Sex Pistols' position in 1977: it was a rebellion against the stuffy corporatism of the 70s." Whilst at university "He was very much a Scot on the make...Niall was a witty, belligerent bloke who seemed to have come from an entirely different planet." according to Simon Winder. Ferguson has stated that "I was surrounded by insufferable Etonians with fake Cockney accents who imagined themselves to be working-class heroes in solidarity with the striking miners. It wasn't long before it became clear that the really funny and interesting people on campus were Thatcherites."

Rachel Johnson has said of Ferguson at the time: :''He was attractive. He was clever. And I still remember him making me sob with laughter by describing how a man feels if he succeeds in bringing a woman to orgasm (like Jesse Owens at the Olympic stadium in Berlin, he said, raising his arms aloft).''

Johnson commisioned Ferguson to write an essay for a collection: :''Ferguson's piece was one of the first to come in. I can't remember much about it, but it wasn't quite the ticket. I remember sending him a photocopied letter that I was sending to all the contributors, with suggestions, pertaining to his essay, at the bottom. I found his reply in my pigeonhole, a few days later. "Dear Rachel Johnson," it read. "F--- off. Yours, Niall Ferguson." I assumed that he wanted nothing to do with the book again, so I re-commissioned the piece.''

Regarding slights and criticism, Ferguson has stated: "Nobody should ever imagine that they can do that kind of thing to me with impunity. Life is long, and revenge is a dish that tastes best cold. I'm very unforgiving."

Ferguson thus went on to attack Johnson's collection of essays (minus his own contribution) in a newspaper review.

At Oxford, Ferguson improved his German by reading Nietzsche whilst drinking Guinness in the pub with Norman Stone.

Career

Academic career

1983-1986 B.A History Magdalen College, Oxford.

1987–88 Hanseatic Scholar, Hamburg and Berlin

1989–90 Research Fellow, Christ’s College, University of Cambridge

1990–92 Official Fellow and Lecturer, Peterhouse, University of Cambridge

1992–2000 Fellow and Tutor in Modern History, Jesus College, University of Oxford

2000–02 Professor of Political and Financial History, University of Oxford

2002–04 John Herzog Professor in Financial History at Stern School of Business, New York University

2004, continuing. Laurence A. Tisch Professor of History, Harvard University and William Ziegler Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School.

2010, continuing. Philippe Roman Chair in History and International Affairs at the London School of Economics, located within LSE IDEAS, beginning in 2010.

Ferguson is a Senior Research Fellow of Jesus College, Oxford University and a Senior Fellow of the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. He is a resident faculty member of the Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, and an advisory fellow of the Barsanti Military History Center at the University of North Texas.

In May 2010 he announced that Education Secretary Michael Gove in the U.K's newly elected Conservative/Lib Dem government had invited him to advise on the development of a new history syllabus—"history as a connected narrative"— for schools in England and Wales. In June 2011 it was announced that he would join the professoriate of New College of the Humanities, a private college in London.

Business career

In 2007, Ferguson was appointed as an Investment Management Consultant by GLG Partners, focusing on geopolitical risk as well as current structural issues in economic behaviour relating to investment decisions. GLG is a UK-based hedge fund management firm headed by Noam Gottesman.

Career as commentator

In October 2007, Niall Ferguson left ''The Sunday Telegraph'' to join the ''Financial Times'', where he is now a contributing editor. He also writes for ''Newsweek''.

Ferguson has often described the European Union as a disaster waiting to happen, and has criticised President Vladimir Putin of Russia for authoritarianism. In Ferguson's view, certain of Putin's policies, if they continue, may stand to lead Russia to catastrophes equivalent to those that befell Germany during the Nazi era.

Subject matter

World War I

In 1998 Ferguson published the critically acclaimed ''The Pity of War: Explaining World War One'', which with the help of research assistants he was able to write in just five months. This is an analytic account of what Ferguson considered to be the ten great myths of the Great War. The book generated much controversy, particularly Ferguson's suggestion that it might have proved more beneficial for Europe if Britain had stayed out of the First World War in 1914, thereby allowing Germany to win. Ferguson has argued that the British decision to intervene was what stopped a German victory in 1914–15. Furthermore, Ferguson expressed disagreement with the ''Sonderweg'' interpretation of German history championed by some German historians such as Fritz Fischer, Hans-Ulrich Wehler, Hans Mommsen and Wolfgang Mommsen, who argued that the German Empire deliberately started an aggressive war in 1914 and that the Second Reich was little more than a dress rehearsal for the Third Reich. Likewise, Ferguson has often attacked the work of the German historian Michael Stürmer, who argued that it was Germany's geographical situation in Central Europe that determined the course of German history.

On the contrary, Ferguson maintained that Germany waged a preventive war in 1914, a war largely forced on the Germans by reckless and irresponsible British diplomacy. In particular, Ferguson accused the British Foreign Secretary Sir Edward Grey of maintaining an ambiguous attitude to the question of whether Britain would enter the war or not, and thus confusing Berlin over just what was the British attitude towards the question of intervention in the war. Ferguson accused London of unnecessarily allowing a regional war in Europe to escalate into a world war. Moreover, Ferguson denied that the origins of National Socialism could be traced back to Imperial Germany; instead Ferguson asserted the origins of Nazism could only be traced back to the First World War and its aftermath.

The “myths” of World War I that Ferguson attacked, with his counter-arguments in parentheticals, are: That Germany was a highly militarist country before 1914 (Ferguson claims Germany was Europe’s most anti-militarist country) That naval challenges mounted by Germany drove Britain into informal alliances with France and Russia before 1914 (Ferguson claims the British were driven into alliances with France and Russia as a form of appeasement due to the strength of those nations, and an Anglo-German alliance failed to materialize due to German weakness) That British foreign policy was driven by legitimate fears of Germany (Ferguson claims Germany posed no threat to Britain before 1914, and that all British fears of Germany were due to irrational anti-German prejudices) That the pre-1914 arms race was consuming ever larger portions of national budgets at an unsustainable rate (Ferguson claims that the only limitations on more military spending before 1914 were political, not economic) That World War I was, as Fritz Fischer claimed, a war of aggression on part of Germany that necessitated British involvement to stop Germany from conquering Europe (Ferguson claims that if Germany had been victorious, something like the European Union would have been created in 1914, and that it would have been for the best if Britain had chosen to opt out of war in 1914) That most people were happy with the outbreak of war in 1914 (Ferguson claims that most Europeans were saddened by the coming of war) That propaganda was successful in making men wish to fight (Ferguson argues the opposite) That the Allies made the best use of their economic resources (Ferguson argues that the Allies “squandered” their economic resources) That the British and the French had the better armies (Ferguson claims the German Army was superior) That the Allies were more efficient at killing Germans (Ferguson argues that the Germans were more efficient at killing the Allies) That most soldiers hated fighting in the war (Ferguson argues most soldiers fought more or less willingly) That the British treated German prisoners of war well (Ferguson argues the British routinely killed German POWS) That Germany was faced with reparations after 1921 that could not be paid except at ruinous economic cost (Ferguson argues that Germany could easily have paid reparations had there been the political will)

Another controversial aspect of the ''Pity of War'' was Ferguson's use of counterfactual history. Ferguson presented a counter-factual version of Europe under Imperial German domination that was peaceful, prosperous, democratic and without ideologies like Communism and fascism. In Ferguson's view, had Germany won World War I, then the lives of millions would have been saved, something like the European Union would have been founded in 1914, and Britain would have remained an empire and the world's dominant financial power. ''The House of Rothschild: Volume 2: The World's Banker: 1849–1999'' The books won the Wadsworth Prize for Business History and were also short-listed for the Jewish Quarterly-Wingate Literary Award and the American National Jewish Book Award.

Counterfactual history

Ferguson is an academic champion of counterfactual history, and edited a collection of essays exploring the subject titled ''Virtual History: Alternatives and Counterfactuals'' (1997). Ferguson likes to imagine alternative outcomes as a way of stressing the contingent aspects of history. For Ferguson, great forces don't make history; individuals do and nothing is predetermined. Thus, for Ferguson there are no paths in history that will determine how things will work out. The world is neither progressing nor regressing; only the actions of individuals will determine whether we live in a better or worse world. His championing of the method has been controversial within the field.

In a recent review of Ferguson's book Civilisation, Noel Malcolm who is Senior Research Fellow in History at All Souls College, Oxford University stated that: "Students may find this an intriguing introduction to a wide range of human history; but they will get an odd idea of how historical argument is to be conducted, if they learn it from this book."

Henry Kissinger

In 2003, former United States Secretary of State Henry Kissinger provided Ferguson with access to his White House diaries, letters, and archives for what Ferguson calls a "warts-and-all biography" of Kissinger.

Colonialism

Ferguson is critical of what he calls the "self-flagellation" that he says characterizes modern European thought.

"The moral simplification urge is an extraordinarily powerful one, especially in this country, where imperial guilt can lead to self-flagellation," he told a reporter. "And it leads to very simplistic judgments. The rulers of western Africa prior to the European empires were not running some kind of scout camp. They were engaged in the slave trade. They showed zero sign of developing the country's economic resources. Did Senegal ultimately benefit from French rule? Yes, it's clear. And the counterfactual idea that somehow the indigenous rulers would have been more successful in economic development doesn't have any credibility at all."

Richard Drayton, Professor of Colonial History at the University of London, has stated that it is correct to associate "Ferguson with an attempt to "rehabilitate empire" in the service of contemporary great power interests."

Islam and Eurabia

Matthew Carr wrote in ''Race & Class'' that "Niall Ferguson, the conservative English historian and enthusiastic advocate of a new American empire, has also embraced the Eurabian idea in a widely reproduced article entitled ‘Eurabia?’, in which he laments the ‘de-Christianization of Europe’ and its culture of secularism that leaves the continent ‘weak in the face of fanaticism’." Carr adds that "Ferguson sees the recent establishment of a department of Islamic studies in his Oxford college as another symptom of the ‘the creeping Islamicization of a decadent Christendom’" and that in a 2004 lecture at the American Enterprise Institute entitled ‘The end of Europe?’, "Ferguson struck a similarly Spenglerian note, conjuring the term ‘impire’ to depict a process in which a ‘political entity, instead of expanding outwards towards its periphery, exporting power, implodes – when the energies come from outside into that entity’. In Ferguson’s opinion, this process was already under way in a decadent ‘post-Christian’ Europe that was drifting inexorably towards the dark denouement of a vanquished civilisation and the fatal embrace of Islam."

Iraq war

Ferguson supported the Iraq war and isn't necessarily opposed to future incursions in the world.

"It's all very well for us to sit here in the west with our high incomes and cushy lives, and say it's immoral to violate the sovereignty of another state. But if the effect of that is to bring people in that country economic and political freedom, to raise their standard of living, to increase their life expectancy, then don't rule it out."

Economic policy

In its August 15, 2005 edition, ''The New Republic'' published "The New New Deal", an essay by Ferguson and Laurence J. Kotlikoff, a Professor of Economics at Boston University. The two scholars called for the following changes to the American government's fiscal and income security policies:

Replacing the personal income tax, corporate income tax, Federal Insurance Contributions Act tax (FICA), estate tax, and gift tax with a 33% Federal Retail Sales Tax (FRST), plus a monthly rebate, amounting to the FRST a household with similar demographics would pay if its income were at the poverty line. See also: FairTax;

Replacing the Old Age benefits paid under Social Security with a Personal Security System, consisting of private retirement accounts for all citizens, plus a government benefit payable to those whose savings were insufficient to afford a minimum retirement income;

Replacing Medicare and Medicaid with a Medical Security System that would provide health insurance vouchers to all citizens, the value of which would be determined by one's health;

Cutting federal discretionary spending by 20%.

A recent ''New Republic'' piece with Harvard's Samuel J. Abrams explored attitudes towards immigration in Europe and the United States.

Criticisms

As scholar

Fellow academics have questioned Ferguson's commitment to scholarship. Benjamin Wallace-Wells, an editor of ''The Washington Monthly'', comments that

"''The House of Rothschild'' remains Ferguson's only major work to have received prizes and wide acclaim from other historians. Research restrains sweeping, absolute claims: Rothschild is the last book Ferguson wrote for which he did original archival work, and his detailed knowledge of his subject meant that his arguments for it couldn't be too grand."

John Lewis Gaddis, a renowned Cold War era historian, characterized Ferguson as having unrivaled "range, productivity and visibility" at the same time as criticising his work as being "unpersuasive". Gaddis goes on to state that "several of Ferguson's claims, moreover, are contradictory".

Marxist historian Eric Hobsbawm has praised Ferguson as an excellent historian. However, he has also criticised Ferguson, saying, on the BBC Radio programme "Start the Week", that he was a "nostalgist for empire". Ferguson responded to the above criticisms in a Washington Post "Live Discussions" online forum in 2006.

Exchange with Krugman

In May 2009, Ferguson became involved in a high-profile exchange of views with economist Paul Krugman (then the most recent Economics Nobel Prize winner) arising out of a panel discussion hosted by Pen/New York Review on April 30, 2009, regarding the U.S. economy. Ferguson contended that the Obama administration's policies are simultaneously Keynesian and monetarist, in an incoherent mix, and specifically that the government's issuance of a multitude of new bonds will cause an increase in interest rates. Krugman then extended the criticism to China and the European Union, as both pursued policies more in accord with Ferguson's stance than Krugman's.

Krugman has argued that Ferguson's view is "resurrecting 75-year old fallacies" and full of "basic errors". He has also stated that Ferguson is a "poseur" who "...hasn't bothered to understand the basics, relying on snide comments and surface cleverness to convey the impression of wisdom. It's all style, no comprehension of substance." J. Bradford DeLong of Berkeley agreed with Krugman, concluding "Niall Ferguson does indeed know a lot less than economists knew in the 1920s".

Ferguson criticized Krugman in his December 7, 2009 Newsweek cover story, "An Empire at Risk", claiming that Krugman's partisanship caused him to change his position between 2003 and 2004. Ferguson wrote:

Now, who said the following? 'My prediction is that politicians will eventually be tempted to resolve the [fiscal] crisis the way irresponsible governments usually do: by printing money, both to pay current bills and to inflate away debt. And as that temptation becomes obvious, interest rates will soar.' Seems pretty reasonable to me. The surprising thing is that this was none other than Paul Krugman, the high priest of Keynesianism, writing back in March 2003. A year and a half later he was comparing the U.S. deficit with Argentina's (at a time when it was 4.5 percent of GDP). Has the economic situation really changed so drastically that now the same Krugman believes it was 'deficits that saved us,' and wants to see an even larger deficit next year? Perhaps. But it might just be that the party in power has changed.

Personal life

He married journalist Susan Douglas, whom he met in 1987 when she was his editor at the ''Daily Mail''. They have three children. They separated in 2010 and began divorce proceedings in 2011.

His younger sister is a professor at the University of Pennsylvania.

Ferguson was the inspiration for Alan Bennett's play ''The History Boys'', particularly the character of Irwin, a history teacher who urges his pupils to find a counterintuitive angle, and goes on to become a television historian.

Ferguson rises at 6am every day.

Ferguson's self confessed workaholism has placed strains on his personal relations in the past. Ferguson has commented that: :''from 2002, the combination of making TV programmes and teaching at Harvard took me away from my children too much. You don't get those years back. You have to ask yourself: "Was it a smart decision to do those things?" I think the success I have enjoyed since then has been bought at a significant price. In hindsight, there would have been a bunch of things that I would have said no to.''

Relationship with Ayaan Hirsi Ali

In February 2010 the ''Daily Mail'' reported that, following a series of affairs, Ferguson had left his wife for former Dutch MP and feminist critic of Islam Ayaan Hirsi Ali. A similar story in ''The Independent'' was followed by the publication of a correction, noting that Ferguson's marriage had broken down before he met Ali. As of June 2011, Ali is reportedly five months pregnant with Ferguson's child. Ferguson dedicated his book ''Civilization'' to "Ayaan". In an interview with ''The Guardian'', Ferguson spoke about his love for Ali, who, he writes in the preface, "understands better than anyone I know what Western civilisation really means – and what it still has to offer the world".

Ali, he continued,

"grew up in the Muslim world, was born in Somalia, spent time in Saudi Arabia, was a fundamentalist as a teenager. Her journey from the world of her childhood and family to where she is today is an odyssey that's extremely hard for you or I to imagine. To see and hear how she understands western philosophy, how she understands the great thinkers of the Enlightenment, of the 19th-century liberal era, is a great privilege, because she sees it with a clarity and freshness of perspective that's really hard for us to match. So much of liberalism in its classical sense is taken for granted in the west today and even disrespected. We take freedom for granted, and because of this we don't understand how incredibly vulnerable it is."

See also

Anglosphere

Chimerica

Bibliography

''The Cash Nexus''

In his 2001 book, ''The Cash Nexus'', which he wrote following a year as Houblon-Norman Fellow at the Bank of England, Ferguson argues that the popular saying, "money makes the world go 'round", is wrong; instead he presented a case for human actions in history motivated by far more than just economic concerns.

''Colossus'' and ''Empire''

In his books ''Colossus'' and ''Empire'', Ferguson presents a nuanced and partially apologetic view of the British Empire and in conclusion proposes that the modern policies of the United Kingdom and the United States, in taking a more active role in resolving conflict arising from the failure of states, are analogous to the 'Anglicization' policies adopted by the British Empire throughout the 19th century. In ''Colossus'', Ferguson explores the United States' hegemony in foreign affairs and its future role in the world.

''War of the World''

The ''War of the World'', published in 2006, had been ten years in the making and is a comprehensive analysis of the savagery of the 20th century. Ferguson shows how a combination of economic volatility, decaying empires, psychopathic dictators, and racially/ethnically motivated (and institutionalized) violence resulted in the wars and the genocides of what he calls "History's Age of Hatred". The New York Times Book Review named ''War of the World'' one of the 100 Notable Books of the Year in 2006, while the ''International Herald Tribune'' called it "one of the most intriguing attempts by an historian to explain man's inhumanity to man". Ferguson addresses the paradox that, though the 20th century was "so bloody", it was also "a time of unparalleled [economic] progress". As with his earlier work ''Empire'', ''War of the World'' was accompanied by a Channel 4 television series presented by Ferguson.

''The Ascent of Money''

Published in 2008, ''The Ascent of Money'' examines the long history of money, credit, and banking. In it he predicts a financial crisis as a result of the world economy and in particular the United States using too much credit. Specifically he cites the China–America dynamic which he refers to as Chimerica where an Asian "savings glut" helped create the subprime mortgage crisis with an influx of easy money.

''Civilization''

Published in 2011, ''Civilization: The West and the Rest'' examines what Ferguson calls the most "interesting question" of our day: "Why, beginning around 1500, did a few small polities on the western end of the Eurasian landmass come to dominate the rest of the world?" He attributes this divergence to the West's development of six "killer apps" largely missing elsewhere in the world - "competition, science, democracy, medicine, consumerism and the work ethic". A related documentary ''Civilization: Is the West History?'' was broadcast as a six part series on Channel 4 in March and April of 2011.

Publications

(also a Channel 4 series)

As Contributor

“Europa nervosa”, in Nader Mousavizadeh (ed.), The Black Book of Bosnia (New Republic/Basic Books, 1996), pp. 127–32

“The German inter-war economy: Political choice versus economic determinism” in Mary Fulbrook (ed.), German History since 1800(Arnold, 1997), pp. 258–278

“The balance of payments question: Versailles and after” in Manfred F. Boemeke, Gerald D. Feldman and Elisabeth Glaser (eds.), The Treaty of Versailles: A Reassessment after 75 Years (Cambridge University Press, 1998), pp. 401–440

“‘The Caucasian Royal Family’: The Rothschilds in national contexts” in R. Liedtke (ed.), ‘Two Nations’: The Historical Experience of British and German Jews in Comparison (J.C.B. Mohr, 1999)

“Academics and the Press”, in Stephen Glover (ed.), Secrets of the Press: Journalists on Journalism (Penguin, 1999), pp. 206–220

“Metternich and the Rothschilds: A reappraisal” in Andrea Hamel and Edward Timms (eds.), Progress and Emancipation in the Age of Metternich: Jews and Modernisation in Austria and Germany, 1815–1848 (Edwin Mellen Press, 1999), pp. 295–325

“The European economy, 1815–1914” in T.C.W. Blanning (ed.), The Short Oxford History of Europe: The Nineteenth Century (Oxford University Press, 2000), pp. 78–125

“How (not) to pay for the war: Traditional finance and total war” in Roger Chickering and Stig Förster (eds.), Great War, Total War: Combat and Mobilization on the Western Front (Cambridge University Press, 2000), pp. 409–34

“Introduction” in Frederic Manning , Middle Parts of Fortune (Penguin, 2000), pp. vii-xviii

“Clashing civilizations or mad mullahs: The United States between informal and formal empire” in Strobe Talbott (ed.), The Age of Terror (Basic Books, 2001), pp. 113–41

“Public debt as a post-war problem: The German experience after 1918 in comparative perspective” in Mark Roseman (ed.), Three Post-War Eras in Comparison: Western Europe 1918-1945-1989 (Palgrave-Macmillan, 2002), pp. 99–119

“Das Haus Sachsen-Coburg und die europäische Politik des 19. Jahrhunderts”, in Rainer von Hessen (ed.), Victoria Kaiserin Friedrich (1840–1901): Mission und Schicksal einer englischen Prinzessin in Deutschland (Campus Verlag, 2002), pp. 27–39

“Max Warburg and German politics: The limits of financial power in Wilhelmine Germany”, in Geoff Eley and James Retallack (eds.), Wilhelminism and Its Legacies: German Modernities, Imperialism and the Meaning of Reform, 1890-1930 (Berghahn Books, 2003), pp. 185–201

“Introduction”, The Death of the Past by J. H. Plumb (Palgrave Macmillan, 2003), pp. xxi-xlii

“Globalization in historical perspective: The political dimension”, in Michael D. Bordo, Alan M. Taylor and Jeffrey G. Williamson (eds.), Globalisation in Historical Perspective (National Bureau of Economic Research Conference Report) (University of Chicago Press, 2003)

“Introduction to Tzvetan Todorov” in Nicholas Owen (ed.), Human Rights, Human Wrongs: Oxford Amnesty Lectures (Amnesty International, 2003)

“The City of London and British imperialism: New light on an old question”, in Youssef Cassis and Eric Bussière (eds.), London and Paris as International Financial Centres in the Twentieth Century (Oxford University Press, 2004), pp. 57–77

“A bolt from the blue? The City of London and the outbreak of the First World War”, in Wm. Roger Louis (ed.), Yet More Adventures with Britainnia: Personalities, Politics and Culture in Britain (I.B. Tauris, 2005), pp. 133–145

“The first ‘Eurobonds’: The Rothschilds and the financing of the Holy Alliance, 1818–1822”, in William N. Goetzmann and K. Geert Rouwenhorst (eds.), The Origins of Value: The Financial Innovations that Created Modern Capital Markets (Oxford University Press, 2005), pp. 311–323

“Prisoner taking and prisoner killing in the age of total war”, in George Kassemiris (ed.), The Barbarization of Warfare (New York University Press, 2006), pp. 126–158

“The Second World War as an economic disaster”, in Michael Oliver (ed.), Economic Disasters of the Twentieth Century (Edward Elgar, 2007), pp. 83–132

“The Problem of Conjecture: American Strategy after the Bush Doctrine”, in Melvyn Leffler and Jeff Legro (eds.), To Lead the World: American Strategy After the Bush Doctrine (Oxford University Press, 2008)

Television documentaries

Empire (2003)

American Colossus (2004)

The War of the World (2006)

The Ascent of Money (2008)

Civilization: Is The West History? (2011)

References

Notes

General references

External links

niallferguson.org, Ferguson's official website

RSA Vision webcast - Niall Ferguson on "The Ascent of Money"

Audio: Niall Ferguson in conversation on the BBC World Service discussion programme ''The Forum''

Hans Koning's Review of 'The Pity of War' (from The Nation)

A Banker to the Rescue, Martin Rubin, The Wall Street Journal, 26 June 2010

"Yesterday's Banker" Liaquat Ahamed, ''The New York Times'', 30 July 2010

Historian vs. Futurist on Human Progress discussion with Stewart Brand and Peter Schwartz (futurist) at The Long Now Foundation, May 2008

On the Edge of Chaos discussion of his work at Centre for Independent Studies, July 2010

'The Sun Sets in the West', review of ''Civilization'' in the ''Oxonian Review''

An Interview with Niall Ferguson, ''Oxonian Review'', 9 April 2011

Category:1964 births Category:Living people Category:Alumni of Christ's College, Cambridge Category:Alumni of Magdalen College, Oxford Category:British foreign policy writers Category:Fellows of Jesus College, Oxford Category:Fellows of Peterhouse, Cambridge Category:Harvard Business School faculty Category:Harvard University faculty Category:New York University faculty Category:People from Glasgow Category:Scottish historians Category:World War I historians

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