Disasters are inherently hard to predict. But when catastrophe strikes,we ought to be better prepared than the Romans were when Vesuvius erupted or medieval Italians when the Black Death struck. We have science on our side,after all. Yet the responses of many developed countries to a new pathogen from China were badly bungled. Why
While populist rulers certainly performed poorly in the face of the pandemic,Niall Ferguson argues that more profound pathologies were at work - pathologies already visible in our responses to earlier disasters.
Drawing from multiple disciplines,including economics and network science,Doom: The Politics of Catastrophe offers not just a history but a general theory of disaster. As Ferguson shows,governments must learn to become less bureaucratic if we are to avoid the impending doom of irreversible decline.
Publisher: Penguin Books LtdISBN: 9780141995557Number of pages: 512Weight: 351 gDimensions: 198 x 129 x 22 mm
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'Magisterial reach... immensely readable... Ferguson (applies) his prodigious intellect to placing the present pandemic on a wider historic canvas.'- Douglas Alexander,Financial Times
'This is not just about a virus but a collision of politics,panic,digital media,human behaviour and incompetence. Niall Ferguson's Doom looks at each of these aspects,putting them into historical perspective in a book of dazzling range and rigour.'- Fraser Nelson,The Spectator
'Niall Ferguson's Doom is often insightful,productively provocative and downright brilliant.'-New York Times
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