Autopsies of Disaster
Niall Ferguson, the global jet-setter historian based
at Stanford’s Hoover Institution has written a long and somewhat disjointed
book on politics of disasters. It is really three books:
1 1) An analysis of
prior disasters,
2 2) A history of the
past 120 years,
3 3) His speculations
about the future of U.S./China relations.
He starts his book discussing his travels to and from
2021 Davos meeting and points beyond. In essence he was a potential
super-spreader of COVID 19. He ends up being holed up in Montana with his
family where he wrote this book. He finished the book in August 2020, not
knowing how bad the pandemic would get over the next six months. Hence he was
way too complacent in comparing COVID-19 with the 1957 flu epidemic.
To make his points he uses network theory and fractal
geometry to explain prior catastrophes. He is especially acute in discussing
the 1918 Spanish Flu, the Challenger disaster, the Irish famine, Chernobyl, and
the Battle of the Somme. In all he points to the fact that although many
disasters appear to be natural, there are significant human causes associated
with them. These could either be population concentrations in flood zones of
massive bureaucratic failures to understand the nature of the challenges they
faced. The latter was especially acute with respect to the Challenger and
Chernobyl.
In his discussion of our future relations Ferguson
believes we are now in Cold War 2.0. There was one very especially acute
statement made by Chinese political theorist Jiang Shigong who noted “The
Anglo-American Empire is unravelling internally beset by three unsolvable
problems. The ever-increasing inequality created by the liberal
economy…ineffective governance caused by political liberalism, and decadence
and nihilism created by cultural liberalism.” That pretty much says it all.
Although I was disappointed with Ferguson’s book, it
remains a very thought provoking read.
For the full amazon URL see: Autopsies of Disaster (amazon.com)
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