Conversations with History: Niall Ferguson

Conversations host Harry Kreisler welcomes Harvard historian Niall Ferguson for a discussion of his book "The War of the World." Ferguson analyzes the role of ethnic conflict, economic volatility, and the decline of empires in making the twentieth century the most violent one in human history. Series: Conversations with History [12/2006] [Public Affairs] [Show ID: 12082]

Category:

Education

Tags:

• human
• history
• niall
• ferguson
• economics
• violence

[joehughes9]

infokemp:Ferguson may be from Glasgow but he's hardly from a tough working-class background.His father was a doctor and he attended the exclusive Glasgow Academy, one of the city's most expensive schools.

[italianocantu]

Niall is a great man; his classes are extremely tough, if you blink, vital information will be lost for good.

[christvbible]

The people who make war are not the American and British citizens per se but a cabal, a secret cabal of political stewards who look after the treasures owned by the super rich strata of society, the upper middle classes and their feudal landlords of vast estates, an economic hinterland of secret alliances and loyalties that are off limits to historical enquiry. These stewards are over paid professionals, usually lawyers, trained in the art of esoteric word play who cook laws to justify genocide

[christvbible]

The questions I rarely hear academics take very seriously is whether their exists a multi-layerd structure of command in the relationship between government and media that is being employed at high minsterial level on behalf of supranational syndicates like International Bank cartels. The way the British Government closed down the reporting on the Iraq Dossier that falsified reasons for the war would suggest the entire mainstream press corps was injudiciously coerced into keeping silent..

[christvbible]

The problem for historians is the propaganda question, whether news that shapes the making of history is really news, the problem of news content patterns that hard wire public consciousness to narrow fields of view and the use of irrational fear. As a case study, the BBC propaganda machine, kicked off the infamous war on Iraqi citizens by conditioning the British public to fear the perceived threat of being hit by WOMD from Iraq. News created the social schema for justifying war, making history

[christvbible]

Academics dealing in the medium of historical revision are like prophets with unusual insight into interpreting the times. Our minds our bombarded every day by media channels that on the whole deliver Flat Earth News which is necessarily structured around the basic principle of capitalism, that is to say cost effective. In a competitive market Money makers see news as a commodity. It is bought cheap, subsidised by adverts, and rolled off the production line by loyal staff in a newsroom factory

[ulaghchi]

@RedTyphoon1 Cowardly bitch.

[ulaghchi]

Ferguson is pathetic.

[RedTyphoon1]

@RedTyphoon1 Better than covered in Communism shit. The Soviet Union fell apart, Stalin killed more people than Hitler, Communism collapsed. Stop being in denial, Bitch.

[toqtaqiya]

@RedTyphoon1 You're covered in American shit.

[RedTyphoon1]

@toqtaqiya You're the asshole. Communism Sucks.