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The Square and the Tower

The Square and the Tower

Networks, Hierarchies and the Struggle for Global Power

by Niall Ferguson
Paperback
Publication Date: 30/10/2017

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$35.00
Historians love to write about rulers - kings, emperors, presidents - or about vast social forces - migration, industrialisation - but what if they are all missing the point? Thinking about our own lives, isn't it clear that what makes the world go round are families, colleagues, teams, associations- in other words, networks?

Many old Italian towns have the same central structure- a large square where people gather and a tower where the town's elite ruled from. Throughout history you can express the battle between the two as a battle of networks - who knows who, who works with who- guilds, families, fellowships, clans, cabals all cooperating to make sometimes huge changes. Sometimes the power lies with those lurking in the tower and sometimes with those in the square. Access to information, to credit, to ideas, to news - all constantly shift. Whether in the Renaissance or in the present day what makes the world work is an astonishing tangle of networks - and this was as true for the effort that went into discovering the New World as it is now for fighting elections or just talking to friends online.

In his enormously enjoyable new book, Niall Ferguson celebrates the myriad ways in which the battle between rival networks makes history happen.
ISBN:
9780241298985
9780241298985
Category:
Social & cultural history
Format:
Paperback
Publication Date:
30-10-2017
Publisher:
Penguin Books Ltd
Country of origin:
United Kingdom
Pages:
608
Dimensions (mm):
234x153x33mm
Weight:
0.67kg
Niall Ferguson

Niall Ferguson is one of Britain's most renowned historians. He is a Laurence A. Tisch Professor of History at Harvard University, a Senior Research Fellow of Jesus College, Oxford University, and a Senior Fellow of the Hoover Institution, Stanford University.

The bestselling author of Paper and Iron, The House of Rothschild, The Pity of War, The Cash Nexus, Empire and Colossus, he also writes regularly for newspapers and magazines all over the world.

Since 2003 he has written and presented three highly successful television documentary series for Channel Four: Empire, American Colossus and, most recently, The War of the World. He, his wife and three children divide their time between the United Kingdom and the United States.

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