Niall Ferguson

Another great book presented on C-SPAN today: Niall Ferguson’s Civilization: The West and the Rest. This book will air on PBS in 2012. Ferguson has a resume of one publication after another, seemingly all winners of some award or another, and holds several degrees, including a D. of Phil., and also several professorships and research scholarships. He is located on the Internet, of course, and I will not go into what is there for you to read. But I must tell you something that clicked with me from his interview. He said while he was still in his teens, he read Tolstoy’s War and Peace TWICE, and it changed his life.

He also said American society will not be right again till we elect leaders who understand and experience the kind of education he talks about in this book. He even referred to Shakespeare as an example of the sort of education he meant. I agree with that.

I will get this book as soon as I can, but I want to predict now that it will probably prove to be another MUM book, a companion to MUM. I imagine he is quite familiar with that gem of a book. If we liked Man’s Unconquerable Mind, we will surely like this one. ♥