It's all very well for us to sit here in the west with our high incomes and cushy lives, and say it's… — Niall Ferguson Copy Share Image
Over time, the welfare state has become dysfunctional in a surprising way. But in a way it became a victim of its… — Niall Ferguson Copy Share Image
“The bacteriologist, often risking his life to find cures for lethal afflictions, was another kind of imperial hero, as brave in his… — Niall Ferguson Copy Share Image
As a financial historian, I was quite isolated in Oxford - British historians are supposed to write about kings - so the… — Niall Ferguson Copy Share Image
“The dead outnumber the living fourteen to one, and we ignore the accumulated experience of such a huge majority of mankind at… — Niall Ferguson Copy Share Image
“For most of history, life has been hierarchical. A few have enjoyed the privileges that come from monopolizing violence. Everyone else has… — Niall Ferguson Copy Share Image
“American society was justly famed in the nineteenth century for the richness of its associational life. Indeed, as we have seen, Alexis… — Niall Ferguson Copy Share Image
There aren't many people who really put their life on the line for human freedom. — Niall Ferguson Copy Share Image
“I wrote this book because I had formed a strong impression that the people currently living were paying insufficient attention to the dead.” — Niall Ferguson Copy Share Image
“Consider this: the US economy created 2.4 million jobs in the three years beginning in June 2009. In the same period, 3.3 million Americans… — Niall Ferguson Copy Share Image
I think the rise of quantitative econometrics and a highly mathematical approach to risk management was the obverse of a decline in interest in… — Niall Ferguson Copy Share Image
“Is it better today to be in a network, which gives you influence, than in a hierarchy, which gives you power?” — Niall Ferguson Copy Share Image
As a teacher, my strategy is to encourage questioning. I'm the least authoritarian professor you'll ever meet. — Niall Ferguson Copy Share Image
Ask me not, 'Are you rightwing,' but ask me 'Are you a committed believer in individual freedom, the values of the enlightenment?' Then, yeah,… — Niall Ferguson Copy Share Image
“Many historians still tend to assume that the spread of an idea or an ideology is a function of its inherent content in relation… — Niall Ferguson Copy Share Image
“the twentieth century ran a series of experiments, imposing quite different institutions on two sets of Germans (in West and East), two sets of… — Niall Ferguson Copy Share Image
“Historians are not scientists. They cannot (and should not even trying to) establish universal laws of social or political "physics" with reliable predictive powers.… — Niall Ferguson Copy Share Image
You really struggle to be a successful empire if you are also the world's biggest debtor. — Niall Ferguson Copy Share Image
“One difficulty is that we cannot always reconstruct the past thoughts of these non-Western peoples, for not all of them existed in civilizations with… — Niall Ferguson Copy Share Image
If young men have jobs - or the prospects of jobs - they are less likely to take up arms, they are less likely… — Niall Ferguson Copy Share Image
