View source for Niall Ferguson

{{short description|Scottish historian (born 1964)}}
{{similar names|Neil Ferguson (disambiguation)}}
{{use British English|date=January 2013}}
{{use dmy dates|date=June 2024}}
{{Infobox academic
| honorific_prefix = [[Sir]]
| name = Niall Ferguson
| honorific_suffix = {{Post-nominals|country=GBR|size=small|HonFRSE}}
| birth_date = {{birth date and age|df=y|1964|4|18}}
| birth_name = Niall Campbell Ferguson
| birth_place = [[Glasgow]], Scotland
| citizenship = {{hlist|United Kingdom|United States}}
| image = Niall Ferguson no Fronteiras do Pensamento São Paulo 2017 (37840342015) (cropped).jpg
| caption = Ferguson in 2017
| education = [[Magdalen College, Oxford]]<br />([[MA (Oxon)|MA]], [[Doctor of Philosophy|DPhil]])<br />[[University of Hamburg]]
| spouse = {{ubl|{{marriage|[[Sue Douglas]]|1994|2011|end=div}}|{{marriage|[[Ayaan Hirsi Ali]]|10 September 2011}}}}
| discipline = [[World history (field)|International history]]<br />[[Economic history]]
| children = 5
| workplaces = {{unbulleted list|[[University of Cambridge]]|[[University of Oxford]]|[[New York University]]|[[Harvard University]]|[[London School of Economics]]|[[Hoover Institution]], [[Stanford University]]}}
| doctoral_advisor = [[Norman Stone]]
| doctoral_students = [[Tyler Goodspeed]]
| website = {{official URL}}
| module = {{Listen|pos=center|embed=yes|filename=Niall Ferguson BBC Radio4 The Reith Lectures 19 June 2012 b01jmx0p.flac|title={{center|Niall Ferguson's voice}}|type=speech|description={{center|[[:File:Niall Ferguson BBC Radio4 The Reith Lectures 19 June 2012 b01jmx0p.flac|Recorded June 2012]] from the BBC Radio 4 programme the [[Reith Lectures]]}}}}
| notable_works = ''Empire: How Britain Made the Modern World'' (2003)<br />''Civilisation: the West and the Rest'' (2011)
| thesis_title = Business and Politics in the German Inflation
| thesis_url = https://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/permalink/f/89vilt/oxfaleph011095302
| thesis_year = 1989
| influences = [[A. J. P. Taylor]]
}}
'''Sir Niall Campbell Ferguson''', {{Post-nominals|country=GBR|size=small|HonFRSE}} ({{IPAc-en|n|i:|l}} {{respell|NEEL}}; born 18 April 1964)<ref name=FergBio>[http://www.niallferguson.com/site/FERG/Templates/General2.aspx?pageid=5 Biography] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180720022717/http://www.niallferguson.com/site/FERG/Templates/General2.aspx?pageid=5 |date=20 July 2018 }} Niall Ferguson</ref> is a British-American historian who is the Milbank Family Senior Fellow at the [[Hoover Institution]] and a senior fellow at the [[Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs]] at [[Harvard University]].<ref>{{cite web|title=Niall Ferguson|url=https://www.belfercenter.org/person/niall-ferguson|access-date=20 October 2021|website=Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|title=Niall Ferguson|url=https://www.hoover.org/profiles/niall-ferguson|access-date=17 June 2020|website=Hoover Institution}}</ref> Previously, he was a professor at Harvard University, the [[London School of Economics]], [[New York University]], a visiting professor at the [[New College of the Humanities]], and a senior research fellow at [[Jesus College, Oxford]]. He was a [[Visiting scholar|visiting lecturer]] at the London School of Economics for the 2023/2024 academic year and at [[Tsinghua University]] in China from 2019 to 2020.<ref>{{cite web |date=24 October 2023 |title=LSE's School of Public Policy welcomes Niall Ferguson |url=https://www.lse.ac.uk/school-of-public-policy/news/Niall-Ferguson.aspx |access-date=18 June 2024 |website=[[London School of Economics]] }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Tsinghua Global MBA – Your Gateway to the Best of China |url=http://gmba.sem.tsinghua.edu.cn/ |access-date=18 June 2024 |website=gmba.sem.tsinghua.edu.cn}}</ref> He is a co-founder of the [[University of Austin]].<ref name=Bloomberg>{{cite news |last=Ferguson |first=Niall |date=8 November 2021 |title=I'm Helping to Start a New College Because Higher Ed Is Broken |url=https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-11-08/niall-ferguson-america-s-woke-universities-need-to-be-replaced|url-access=registration|access-date=18 June 2024 |work=[[Bloomberg News]]}}</ref> 

Ferguson writes and lectures on [[World history (field)|international history]], [[economic history]], financial history, and the history of the [[British Empire]] and [[American imperialism]].<ref>{{cite web |url=http://history.fas.harvard.edu/people/niall-ferguson |title=Harvard University History Department&nbsp;— Faculty: Niall Ferguson |publisher=History.fas.harvard.edu |access-date=15 September 2013 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141011044911/http://history.fas.harvard.edu/people/niall-ferguson |archive-date=11 October 2014 }}</ref> He holds positive views concerning the British Empire.<ref>{{cite news |last=Dalrymple |first=William |author-link=William Dalrymple |date=26 April 2007 |title=Plain Tales from British India |url=https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2007/04/26/plain-tales-from-british-india/ |access-date=18 June 2024 |work=[[The New York Review of Books]] |volume=54 |issue=7}}</ref> In 2004, he was one of ''[[Time (magazine)|Time]]'' magazine's 100 most influential people in the world.<ref>{{cite magazine |last=Elliott |first=Michael |author-link=Michael J. Elliott|date=26 April 2004 |title=The 2004 ''TIME'' 100|url=https://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1970858_1970909_1971694,00.html |access-date=18 June 2024 |magazine=[[Time (magazine)|Time]]}}</ref> Ferguson has written and presented numerous television documentary series, including ''[[The Ascent of Money]]'', which won an [[International Emmy Award for Best Documentary]] in 2009.<ref name="IntEmmy" /> In 2024, he was [[Orders, decorations, and medals of the United Kingdom|knighted]] by [[Charles III|King Charles III]] for services to literature.<ref>{{cite web |last=Forbes |first=Nick |author-link=Nick Forbes |date=14 June 2024 |title=Scottish historian credits 'family, teachers, mentors and friends' for honour |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/niall-ferguson-scottish-henry-kissinger-ayaan-hirsi-ali-glasgow-b2563033.html |access-date=18 June 2024 |website=[[The Independent]] }}</ref>

Ferguson has been a contributing editor for [[Bloomberg Television]] and a columnist for ''[[Newsweek]]''.<ref>{{cite web |last=Matthews |first=Chris |author-link=Chris Matthews |date=3 May 2016 |title=Conservative Historian Niall Ferguson Blasts Trump Foreign Policy |url=https://fortune.com/2016/05/03/niall-ferguson-trump/ |access-date=18 June 2024 |website=[[Fortune (magazine)|Fortune]] }}</ref> He began writing a semi-monthly [[Column (periodical)|column]] for ''[[Bloomberg Opinion]]'' in June 2020 and has also been a regular columnist at ''[[The Spectator]]'' and the ''[[Daily Mail]].''<ref>{{cite web |date=29 February 2024 |title=Niall Ferguson, Author at The Spectator |url=https://www.spectator.co.uk/writer/niall-ferguson/ |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240329112651/https://www.spectator.co.uk/writer/niall-ferguson/ |archive-date=29 March 2024 |access-date=18 June 2024 |website=[[The Spectator]] }}</ref><ref>{{cite news |title=Ferguson joins Bloomberg Opinion as a columnist |url=https://talkingbiznews.com/they-talk-biz-news/ferguson-joins-bloomberg-opinion-as-a-columnist/ | last=Roush |first=Chris | authorlink=Chris Roush | work=[[Talking Biz News]] |date=28 May 2020}}</ref> In 2021, he became a joint-founder of the new University of Austin. Since June 2024, he is a bi-weekly columnist at ''[[The Free Press (online newsletter)|The Free Press]].''<ref>{{cite web|url=https://thedispatch.com/newsletter/gfile/no-we-are-not-living-in-late-soviet-america/|title=No, We Are Not Living in 'Late Soviet America'|date=28 June 2024|access-date=28 June 2024}}</ref> Ferguson has also contributed articles to many journals including ''[[Foreign Affairs]]'' and ''[[Foreign Policy]].''<ref>{{cite web |date=29 February 2024 |title=Niall Ferguson {{!}} Foreign Affairs |url=https://www.foreignaffairs.com/authors/niall-ferguson |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240426114829/https://www.foreignaffairs.com/authors/niall-ferguson |archive-date=26 April 2024 |access-date=18 June 2024 |website=[[Foreign Affairs]] }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last=Ferguson |first=Niall |date=20 June 2024 |title=Niall Ferguson |url=https://foreignpolicy.com/author/niall-ferguson/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240607050412/https://foreignpolicy.com/author/niall-ferguson/ |archive-date=7 June 2024 |access-date=18 June 2024 |website=[[Foreign Policy]] }}</ref> He has been described as a [[conservative]] and called himself a supporter of [[Ronald Reagan]] and [[Margaret Thatcher]].<ref>{{cite AV media |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a4t_4S1h4Zg |title=The World In 2024 With Niall Ferguson: Crisis, Conflict And The New Axis of Evil |date=6 June 2024 |last=Intelligence Squared |access-date=18 June 2024 |via=YouTube}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last=Hill |first=Henry |date=10 December 2021 |title=Snap guide to modern conservative thinkers 4) Niall Ferguson |url=https://conservativehome.mystagingwebsite.com/2021/12/10/snap-guide-to-modern-conservative-thinkers-4-niall-ferguson/ |access-date=18 June 2024 |website=[[Conservative Home]] }}</ref>

==Early life and education==
Ferguson was born in [[Glasgow]], Scotland, on 18 April 1964 to James Campbell Ferguson, a doctor, and Molly Archibald Hamilton, a physics teacher.<ref name="Smith">{{cite news |url=https://www.theguardian.com/education/2006/jun/18/academicexperts.highereducation |newspaper=[[The Observer]] |first=David |last=Smith |title=Niall Ferguson: The empire rebuilder |date=18 June 2006}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |doi=10.1093/ww/9780199540884.013.14007|title=Ferguson, Prof. Niall Campbell, (born 18 April 1964), Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution, since 2016 (Adjunct Senior Fellow, 2003–16)|journal=[[Who's Who (UK)|Who's Who]]|year=2007}}</ref> Ferguson grew up in the [[Ibrox, Glasgow|Ibrox]] area of Glasgow in a home close to the [[Ibrox Park]] football stadium.<ref>{{cite news |last=Templeton |first=Tom |date=18 January 2009 |title=This much I know |url=https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2009/jan/18/niall-ferguson-historian-interview |access-date=18 June 2024 |newspaper=[[The Guardian]]}}</ref><ref name="highprofiles.info">{{cite web|url=https://highprofiles.info/interview/niall-ferguson/|title=In-depth interview with Niall Ferguson|website=High Profiles}}</ref> He attended [[The Glasgow Academy]].<ref>{{cite news |url=http://harvardmagazine.com/2007/05/the-global-empire-of-nia.html |title=The Global Empire of Niall Ferguson |last=Tassel |first=Janet |year=2007 |work=[[Harvard Magazine]] |access-date=17 June 2012}}</ref> He was brought up as an [[atheist]], although he has encouraged his children to study religion and attends church occasionally.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://bigthink.com/ideas/3896 |title=Niall Ferguson on Belief |last=Ferguson |first=Niall |date=4 January 2008 |publisher=[[Big Think]] |quote=Recorded on: October 31, 2007 |access-date=17 June 2012}}</ref> In a 2023 interview with [[Jordan Peterson]], Ferguson declared: "I'm a lapsed atheist ... I go to church every Sunday, precisely because having been brought up as an atheist, I came to realise in my career as a historian that not only is atheism a disastrous basis for a society ... but also because I don't think it can be a basis for individual ethical decision making."<ref>{{cite AV media |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZn55uYytd0 |title=A Psychologist and Historian Discuss the End of the World {{!}} Dr. Niall Ferguson {{!}} EP 404 |date=11 December 2023 |last1=Peterson |first1=Jordan |last2=Ferguson|first2=Niall|access-date=8 January 2024 |via=YouTube}}</ref>

Ferguson cites his father as instilling in him a strong sense of self-discipline and of the moral value of work, while his mother encouraged his creative side.<ref name=Duncan>{{cite news |url=https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2011/mar/19/niall-ferguson-my-family-values |newspaper=[[The Guardian]]|first=Alistair |last=Duncan |title=Niall Ferguson: My family values |date=19 March 2011}}</ref> His maternal grandfather, a journalist, encouraged him to write.<ref name=Duncan /> He has described his parents as "both very much products of the [[Scottish Enlightenment]]".<ref name="highprofiles.info"/> Ferguson ascribes his decision to read history at university instead of English literature to two main factors: [[Leo Tolstoy]]'s reflections on history at the end of ''[[War and Peace]]'', which he read as a schoolboy,<ref>{{cite magazine|title=Best books ... chosen by Niall Ferguson |url=https://theweek.com/articles/510693/best-books--chosen-by-niall-ferguson |access-date=11 December 2024 |magazine=[[The Week]]|date=8 January 2015}}</ref> and his admiration of historian [[A. J. P. Taylor]],<ref>{{cite news |date=11 January 2018 |title=Niall Ferguson: By the Book |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/11/books/review/niall-ferguson-by-the-book.html |access-date=3 January 2025 |newspaper=[[The New York Times]]}}</ref> with [[Max Hastings]] quoting Ferguson as saying that he "wanted to be the AJP Taylor de nos jours".<ref>{{cite news |last=Vasagar |first=Jeevan |date=18 June 2012 |title=Niall Ferguson: admirable historian, or imperial mischief maker? |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2012/jun/18/niall-ferguson-bbc-reith-lecturer-radio4 |access-date=3 January 2025 |newspaper=[[The Guardian]]}}</ref>

===Oxford===
Ferguson received a [[demyship]] (highest scholarship) from [[Magdalen College, Oxford]].<ref name="Niall Ferguson, Senior Fellow" /> While a student there, he wrote a 90-minute student film ''The Labours of Hercules Sprote'', played double bass in a jazz band "Night in Tunisia", edited the student magazine ''Tributary'', and befriended [[Andrew Sullivan]], who shared his interest in [[right-wing politics]] and [[punk music]].<ref name=RobertBoynton>Robert Boynton [http://www.robertboynton.com/articleDisplay.php?article_id=50 "Thinking the Unthinkable: A profile of Niall Ferguson"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181215174854/http://www.robertboynton.com/articleDisplay.php?article_id=50 |date=15 December 2018 }}, ''[[The New Yorker]]'', 12 April 1999.</ref> He had become a [[Thatcherite]] by 1982. In 1985, he graduated with a [[first-class honours]] degree in [[history]] and was awarded an [[Master of Arts (Oxford, Cambridge, and Dublin)|MA]] from Oxford.<ref>{{cite news |title=About Niall Ferguson |url=https://www.pbs.org/wnet/ascentofmoney/about/about-niall-ferguson/12/ |access-date=11 December 2024 |publisher=PBS |date=7 January 2009}}</ref> Ferguson studied as a Hanseatic Scholar at the [[University of Hamburg]] from 1986 until 1988. He received his [[Doctor of Philosophy|DPhil]] degree from the [[University of Oxford]] in 1989. His dissertation was titled "Business and Politics in the German Inflation: Hamburg 1914–1924".<ref>{{cite book |title=Dissertation Abstracts International: The Humanities and Social sciences |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=LatXAAAAMAAJ |year=1993 |volume=53 |publisher=University Microfilms |page=3318}}</ref>

==Career==

===Academic career===
In 1989, Ferguson worked as a research fellow at [[Christ's College, Cambridge]]. From 1990 to 1992 he was an official fellow and lecturer at [[Peterhouse, Cambridge]]. He then became a fellow and tutor in modern history at [[Jesus College, Oxford]], where in 2000 he was named a professor of political and financial history. In 2002 Ferguson became the John Herzog Professor in Financial History at [[New York University Stern School of Business]], and in 2004 he became the Laurence A. Tisch Professor of History at [[Harvard University]] and William Ziegler Professor of Business Administration at [[Harvard Business School]]. From 2010 to 2011, Ferguson held the Philippe Roman Chair in history and international affairs at the [[London School of Economics]].<ref>{{cite news |url=http://www2.lse.ac.uk/newsAndMedia/newsArchive/archives/2009/ferguson.aspx |date=25 March 2009 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100328211242/http://www2.lse.ac.uk/newsAndMedia/newsArchive/archives/2009/ferguson.aspx |archive-date=28 March 2010 |title=LSE IDEAS appoints Professor Niall Ferguson to chair in international history |publisher=[[London School of Economics]] |quote=Philippe Roman Chair in History and International Affairs, for 2010–2011 |access-date=17 June 2012}}</ref> In 2016 Ferguson left Harvard<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2015/10/8/ferguson-jumps-to-stanford/|title=Historian Niall Ferguson Will Leave Harvard for Stanford|last1=Bernhard|first1=Meg P.|last2=Klein|first2=Mariel A.|date=8 October 2015|website=The Harvard Crimson}}</ref> to become a senior fellow at the [[Hoover Institution]], where he had been an adjunct fellow since 2005. In 2021 he joined [[Bari Weiss]], the Shakespeare scholar [[Pano Kanelos]] and the entrepreneur [[Joe Lonsdale]] to found the [[University of Austin]].<ref name=":4">{{cite web |last=McGee |first=Kate |date=8 November 2023 |title=With $200 million and state approval, University of Austin is ready to start accepting applicants |url=https://www.texastribune.org/2023/11/08/university-austin-uatx-launch-2024/ |access-date=18 June 2024 |website=The Texas Tribune }}</ref><ref>{{cite news |last=Will |first=George F. |date=17 December 2022 |title=Opinion {{!}} How to build a university unafraid of true intellectual diversity |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/12/16/university-of-austin-intellectual-diversity/ |access-date=18 June 2024 |newspaper=[[The Washington Post]]}}</ref> At the time, Ferguson said he was starting the college because "higher ed is broken."<ref name=Bloomberg /> The private liberal arts college was approved to grant degrees in late 2023.<ref name=":4" />

Ferguson has received honorary degrees from the [[University of Buckingham]], [[Macquarie University]] (Australia) and [[Adolfo Ibáñez University]] (Chile). In May 2010, [[Michael Gove]], UK [[Secretary of State for Education|education secretary]], asked Ferguson to advise on the development of a new history syllabus, to be titled "history as a connected narrative", for schools in England and Wales.<ref name="guardian">{{cite news |title=Niall Ferguson: 'Westerners don't understand how vulnerable freedom is' |first=William |last=Skidelsky |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/feb/20/niall-ferguson-interview-civilization |newspaper=[[The Observer]]|date=20 February 2011 |access-date=24 February 2011}}</ref><ref name="CH2010">{{cite news |title=Empire strikes back: rightwing historian to get curriculum role |last=Higgins |first=Charlotte|author-link=Charlotte Higgins|date=31 May 2010|newspaper=[[The Guardian]]|url=https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2010/may/30/niall-ferguson-school-curriculum-role|access-date=31 May 2010}}</ref> In June 2011, he joined other academics to set up the [[New College of the Humanities]], a private college in London.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.ft.com/content/aaa064e2-8f6f-11e0-954d-00144feab49a |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20221211/http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/aaa064e2-8f6f-11e0-954d-00144feab49a.html |archive-date=11 December 2022 |url-access=subscription |url-status=live |title=Star professors set up humanities college |last=Cook |first=Chris |date=5 June 2011 |work=[[Financial Times]] |access-date=17 June 2012}}{{Registration required|reason=free registration and cookies needed to view}}</ref> 

In 2011 at Stanford, emails were released to the public and university administrators which documented Ferguson's attempts to discredit a progressive activist student at [[Stanford University]] who had been critical of Ferguson's choices of speakers invited to the Cardinal Conversations free speech initiative.<ref name="Stanforddaily" /> He teamed with a [[Republican Party (United States)|Republican Party]] student group to find information that might discredit the student. Ferguson resigned from leadership of the program once university administrators became aware of his actions.<ref name="Stanforddaily">{{cite news|last1=Contreras|first1=Brian|last2=Douglas|first2=Courtney|last3=Statler|first3=Ada|title=Leaked emails show Hoover academic conspiring with College Republicans to conduct "opposition research" on student|url=https://www.stanforddaily.com/2018/05/31/emails-between-ferguson-scr-reveal-opposition-research-against-ocon-prompt-fergusons-resignation-from-cardinal-conversations-leadership-role/|access-date=1 June 2018|work=The Stanford Daily|date=31 May 2018}}</ref><ref>{{cite magazine|url=https://newrepublic.com/minutes/148653/niall-ferguson-wanted-opposition-research-student|title=Niall Ferguson wanted opposition research on a student.|magazine=The New Republic|access-date=1 June 2018}}</ref>
Ferguson responded in his column saying, "Re-reading my emails now, I am struck by their juvenile, jocular tone. 'A famous victory', I wrote the morning after the [[Charles Murray (political scientist) | Murray]] event. 'Now we turn to the more subtle game of grinding them down on the committee. The price of liberty is eternal vigilance.' Then I added: 'Some opposition research on Mr O might also be worthwhile'—a reference to the leader of the protests. None of this happened. The meetings of the student committee were repeatedly postponed. No one ever did any digging on 'Mr O'. The spring vacation arrived. The only thing that came of the emails was that their circulation led to my stepping down."<ref>{{cite news |last=Ferguson |first=Niall |date=3 June 2018 |title=A hard lesson on student politics learnt |url=https://www.thetimes.com/comment/article/ouch-a-hard-lesson-on-student-politics-learnt-6t0wx9h38 |newspaper=[[The Times]] |access-date=1 July 2019 |url-access=subscription}}</ref>

===Business ===

In 2000, Ferguson was a founding director of Boxmind,<ref>{{cite news|first=Stuart|last=Millar |title=Star thinkers in 'e-learning' launch |url=https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2001/mar/05/education.highereducation |newspaper=[[The Guardian]]|date=5 March 2001 |access-date=5 March 2001}}</ref> an Oxford-based educational technology company. In 2006, he set up Chimerica Media Ltd.,<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.chimericamedia.com/|title=Chimerica Media|website=www.chimericamedia.com}}</ref> a London-based television production company. In 2007, Ferguson was appointed as an investment management consultant by [[GLG Partners]], to advise on geopolitical risk as well as current structural issues in economic behaviour relating to investment decisions.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.forbes.com/2007/09/30/niall-ferguson-glg-face-markets-cx_ll_0927autofacescan02.html |title=Meet The Hedge Fund Historian |work=Forbes.com |access-date=20 December 2008 |date=30 September 2007 |first=Lionel |last=Laurent}}</ref> GLG is a UK-based [[hedge fund]] management firm headed by [[Noam Gottesman]].<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.glgpartners.com/about_glg/company_description |title=GLG Company Description |access-date=20 December 2008}}{{Dead link|date=May 2012}}</ref>

===Politics and Society===
Ferguson was an advisor to the [[John McCain 2008 presidential campaign]] and supported the [[Mitt Romney 2012 presidential campaign]].<ref>[http://www.aei.org/publication/niall-ferguson-newsweek-and-obama-fact-checking-the-fact-checkers-part-i/ "Niall Ferguson, Newsweek, and Obama: Fact checking the fact checkers (Part I)"], ''Newsweek'', 21 August 2012.</ref><ref>[http://theweek.com/article/index/232260/newsweeks-anti-obama-cover-story-has-the-magazine-lost-all-credibility "Newsweek's anti-Obama cover story: Has the magazine lost all credibility?"] ''The Week'', 21 August 2012.</ref>

Ferguson serves on the Executive Advisory Board of the [[World.minds|World.Minds]] Foundation.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Team – WORLD.MINDS |url=https://www.worldminds.org/team/ |access-date=2025-05-14 |language=en}}</ref>

===Commentary, documentaries and broadcasting===
[[File:Niall Ferguson addresses delegates at the ARC Forum, 30 October 2023.jpg|thumb|Ferguson addresses the [[Alliance for Responsible Citizenship]], London, 2023]]
Ferguson has written regularly for British newspapers and magazines since the mid 1980s. At that time, he was lead writer for ''[[The Daily Telegraph]]'' and a regular book reviewer for ''[[Daily Mail|The Daily Mail]]''. In the summer of 1989, while travelling in [[Berlin]], he wrote an article for a British newspaper with the provisional headline "The [[Berlin Wall]] is Crumbling", but it was not published.<ref>{{cite AV media | work=Talkingpolitics2013 |title=Niall Ferguson on importance of civil institutions and more, at Norwegian Nobel Institute |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8RB7Ah95RM4  |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/youtube/20211222/8RB7Ah95RM4 |archive-date=22 December 2021 |url-status=live|date=28 June 2013 | via=[[YouTube]]}}{{cbignore}}</ref> In the early 2000s he wrote a weekly column for ''[[The Sunday Telegraph]]'' and ''[[Los Angeles Times]]'',<ref>{{cite web |last1=Ferguson |first1=Niall |title=Los Angeles Times Author's Page |url=https://www.latimes.com/lanews-niall-ferguson-20130507-staff.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190326144737/https://www.latimes.com/lanews-niall-ferguson-20130507-staff.html |url-status=dead |archive-date=26 March 2019 |work=Los Angeles Times}}</ref> leaving in 2007 to become a [[contributing editor]] to the ''[[Financial Times]]''.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.theguardian.com/media/2007/oct/23/pressandpublishing.financialtimes |title=Niall Ferguson joins FT |newspaper=[[The Guardian]]|date=23 October 2007|first=Chris |last=Tryhorn |access-date=20 May 2010}}</ref><ref name="nfbio">{{cite web|url=http://www.niallferguson.org/bio.html |title=Niall Ferguson: Biography |access-date=14 July 2008 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080705031813/http://www.niallferguson.org/bio.html |archive-date=5 July 2008 }}</ref> Between 2008 and 2012, he wrote regularly for ''[[Newsweek]]''.<ref name="guardian" />

Since 2015, Ferguson has written a weekly column for ''[[The Sunday Times]]'' and ''[[The Boston Globe]]'', which also appears in numerous papers around the world. Ferguson's television series, ''The Ascent of Money'',<ref>{{cite web |title=The Ascent of Money |url=https://www.pbs.org/wnet/ascentofmoney/ |website=PBS.org |publisher=PBS}}</ref> won the 2009 International Emmy award for Best Documentary.<ref name="IntEmmy">{{cite news |date=3 December 2009 |title=Niall Ferguson wins International Emmy for 'The Ascent of Money' |url=https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2009/12/niall-ferguson-wins-international-emmy-for-the-ascent-of-money/ |access-date=3 December 2009 |work=[[The Harvard Gazette]] |publisher=}}</ref> In 2011, his film company Chimerica Media released its first feature-length documentary, ''Kissinger'', which won the New York Film Festival's prize for Best Documentary. In an interview with [[Peter Robinson (speechwriter)|Peter Robinson]], Ferguson recounted the "humiliation" his wife, [[Ayaan Hirsi Ali]], endured at being disinvited from giving the commencement address at [[Brandeis University]] in 2014.<ref name=":2">{{cite web |title=Uncommon Knowledge: "The Treason of the Intellectuals", With Niall Ferguson {{!}} Uncommon Knowledge {{!}} Peter Robinson {{!}} Hoover Institution|url=https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-treason-of-the-intellectuals-with/id1378389941?i=1000642688614 |access-date=24 January 2024 |website=Apple Podcasts }}</ref><ref>{{cite news |agency=Associated Press |date=9 April 2014 |title=Brandeis withdraws honorary degree for Islam critic Ayaan Hirsi Ali |url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/apr/09/brandeis-withdraws-honorary-degree-ayaan-hirsi-ali-college |access-date=24 January 2024 |newspaper=[[The Guardian]]}}</ref> Observing this to being a recurring phenomena as "a curious illiberal turn" for universities, including Harvard where he was teaching, and that this made him a critic of [[cancel culture]].<ref name=":2" /><ref name=":3">{{cite web |last=O'Toole |first=Fintan |title=Cancel culture is turning healthy tensions into irreconcilable conflicts |url=https://dlv.prospect.gcpp.io/politics/38201/cancel-culture-is-turning-healthy-tensions-into-irreconcilable-conflicts |access-date=24 January 2024 |website=dlv.prospect.gcpp.io }}</ref> [[Prospect (magazine)|''Prospect'']] has since described him as one of the most prominent supporters of anti cancel-culture.<ref name=":3" /> Ferguson has said "[[Wokeism]] has gone from being a fringe fashion to be the dominant ideology of the universities."<ref name=":2" /><ref>{{cite news |title=Pushback at cancel culture is leading to new educational initiatives |url=https://www.economist.com/united-states/2022/02/26/pushback-at-cancel-culture-is-leading-to-new-educational-initiatives |access-date=24 January 2024 |newspaper=[[The Economist]]}}</ref>

====Television documentaries====
* ''Empire: How Britain Made the Modern World'' (2003)
* ''American Colossus'' (2004)
* ''The War of the World'' (2006)
* ''[[The Ascent of Money#Documentary|The Ascent of Money]]'' (2008)
* ''[[Civilization: Is the West History?]]'' (2011)
* ''Kissinger'' (2011)
* ''China: Triumph and Turmoil'' (2012)
* ''[[BBC World War I centenary season#Historical debate|The Pity of War]]'' (2014)
* ''Networld'' (2020)

====BBC Reith Lectures====
[[File:Niall Ferguson recording the BBC Reith Lecture at Gresham College.jpg|thumb|Niall Ferguson recording the third of his 2012 [[Reith Lectures|BBC Reith Lecture]] at [[Gresham College]].]]

In May 2012, the [[BBC]] announced Niall Ferguson was to present its annual [[Reith Lectures]]. These four lectures, titled ''The Rule of Law and its Enemies'', examine the role man-made institutions have played in the economic and political spheres.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-17259197 |title=Historian Niall Ferguson named 2012 BBC Reith Lecturer |work=BBC News |date=11 May 2012 |access-date=15 September 2013}}</ref> In the first lecture, held at the [[London School of Economics]], titled ''The Human Hive'', Ferguson argues for greater openness from governments, saying they should publish accounts which clearly state all assets and liabilities. He said that governments should also follow the lead of business and adopt the [[Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (United States)|Generally Accepted Accounting Principles]], and above all generational accounts should be prepared on a regular basis to make absolutely clear the inter-generational implications of current [[fiscal policy]]. In the lecture, Ferguson says young voters should be more supportive of government [[austerity]] measures if they do not wish to pay further down the line for the profligacy of the [[baby boomer]] generation.<ref>{{cite news |last=Niall |first=Prof |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-18456131 |title=Viewpoint: Why the young should welcome austerity |work=BBC News |date=17 June 2012 |access-date=15 September 2013}}</ref>

In the second lecture, ''The Darwinian Economy'', Ferguson reflects on the causes of the [[2008 financial crisis]], and allegedly erroneous conclusions that many people have drawn from it about the role of [[Economic regulation|regulation]], and asks whether regulation is in fact "the disease of which it purports to be the cure". ''The Landscape of Law'' was the third lecture, delivered at [[Gresham College]]. It examines the [[rule of law]] in comparative terms, asking how far the [[common law]]'s claims to superiority over other systems are credible, and whether we are living through a time of "creeping legal degeneration" in the [[English-speaking world]]. The fourth and final lecture, ''Civil and Uncivil Societies'', focuses on institutions (outside the political, economic and legal realms) designed to preserve and transmit particular knowledge and values. Ferguson asks whether the modern state is quietly killing [[civil society]] in the Western world, and what non-Western societies can do to build a vibrant civil society. The first lecture was broadcast on [[BBC Radio 4]] and the [[BBC World Service]] on Tuesday, 19 June 2012.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00729d9|title=The Reith Lectures |website=BBC Radio 4}}</ref> The series is available as a BBC podcast.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00729d9/episodes/downloads|title=The Reith Lectures |website=BBC Radio 4 – Downloads}}</ref>

===Books===

====''The Cash Nexus''====
In his 2001 book, ''The Cash Nexus'', which he wrote following a year as Houblon-Norman Fellow at the [[Bank of England]],<ref name="nfbio" /> Ferguson argues that the popular saying "money makes the world go 'round{{' "}} is wrong; instead he presented a case for human actions in history motivated by far more than just economic concerns.

====''Empire: How Britain Made the Modern World''====
In his 2003 book, ''Empire: How Britain Made the Modern World'', Ferguson conducts a provocative reinterpretation of the [[British Empire]], casting it as one of the world's great modernising forces. The Empire produced durable changes and [[Globalization|globalisation]] with [[Steam engine|steampower]], [[Electrical telegraph|telegraphs]], and [[Engineering|engineers]].<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.history.ac.uk/ihr/Focus/Empire/reviews/porter.html |title=Empire: How Britain Made the Modern World |date=April 2003 |access-date=17 February 2011 |first=Andrew |last=Porter |publisher=Institute of Historical Research, University of London |work=Reviews in History}}</ref><ref name="Jon-Wilson-2003-False-dangerous">{{cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/education/2003/feb/08/highereducation.britishidentity|title=False and dangerous: Revisionist TV history of Britain's empire is an attempt to justify the new imperial order|newspaper=[[The Guardian]]|first=Jon|last=Wilson|date=8 February 2003a|access-date=17 February 2011}}</ref> [[Bernard Porter]], famous for expressing his views during the [[Porter–MacKenzie debate]] on the British Empire, attacked ''Empire'' in ''[[The London Review of Books]]'' as a "panegyric to British colonialism".<ref name="TellMe">[http://www.lrb.co.uk/v27/n10/letters#letter1 Tell me where I'm wrong] [[London Review of Books]], 19 May 2005</ref> In response to this, Ferguson drew Porter's attention to the conclusion of the book, where he writes: "No one would claim that the record of the British Empire was unblemished. On the contrary, I have tried to show how often it failed to live up to its own ideal of individual liberty, particularly in the early era of enslavement, transportation and the '[[ethnic cleansing]]' of [[indigenous peoples]]." Despite this, Ferguson argues that the British Empire was still preferable to [[German Empire|German]] and [[Empire of Japan|Japanese]] rule at the time:

<blockquote>The 19th-century empire undeniably pioneered free trade, free capital movements and, with the [[British abolition of slavery|abolition of slavery]], free labour. It invested immense sums in developing a global network of modern communications. It spread and enforced the rule of law over vast areas. Though it fought many [[Colonial war|small wars]], the empire maintained a [[Pax Britannica|global peace]] unmatched before or since. In the 20th century too the empire more than justified its own existence. For the alternatives to British rule represented by the German and Japanese empires were clearly—and they admitted it themselves—far worse. And without its empire, it is inconceivable that Britain could have withstood them.<ref name=TellMe /></blockquote>

The book was the subject for a documentary series on British television network [[Channel 4]].

====''Colossus: The Rise and Fall of the American Empire'' ====
In his 2005 book, ''Colossus: The Rise and Fall of the American Empire'', Ferguson proposes that the United States aspires to globalize free markets, the rule of law, and representative government but shies away from the long-term commitments of manpower and money that are indispensable in taking a more active role in resolving conflict arising from the [[Failed state|failure of states]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.strategicforesight.com/bookreview_collosus.htm |title=A Review of: Colossus by Prof Niall Ferguson |date=July 2006 |first=Sundeep |last=Waslekar |work=StrategicForesight.com |publisher=Strategic Foresight Group |access-date=17 February 2011 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091010180623/http://strategicforesight.com/bookreview_collosus.htm |archive-date=10 October 2009 }}</ref> The United States is an empire in denial, not acknowledging the scale of global responsibilities.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/colossus-by-niall-ferguson-563249.html |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220618/https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/colossus-by-niall-ferguson-563249.html |archive-date=18 June 2022 |url-access=subscription |url-status=live |title=Colossus by Niall Ferguson: An empire in deep denial |date=14 May 2004 |first=Adam |last=Roberts |work=The Independent |access-date=17 February 2011}}</ref> The American writer [[Michael Lind]], responding to Ferguson's advocation of an enlarged [[United States Armed Forces|American military]] through [[Conscription in the United States|conscription]], accused Ferguson of engaging in apocalyptic alarmism about the possibility of a world without the United States as the dominant power and of a casual disregard for the value of human life.<ref name="Lind">{{cite web| last = Lind | first = Michael | title = Niall Ferguson and the Brain Dead American Right |work=[[Salon.com]]| date=24 May 2011| url = http://www.salon.com/2011/05/24/lind_niall_fergsuon/ | access-date = 31 May 2016}}</ref>

====''War of the World''====
{{Redirect|War of the World|the science fiction novel|The War of the Worlds|other uses|World at War (disambiguation){{!}}World at War|and|World War (disambiguation){{!}}World War|and|The War of the Worlds (disambiguation)}}
In ''War of the World'', published in 2006, Ferguson argued that a combination of [[Volatility (finance)|economic volatility]], decaying empires, psychopathic dictators, racially/ethnically motivated and [[Structural violence|institutionalised violence]] resulted in the wars and genocides of what he calls "History's Age of Hatred". ''[[The New York Times Book Review]]'' named ''War of the World'' one of the 100 Notable Books of the Year in 2006, while the ''[[International Herald Tribune]]'' called it "one of the most intriguing attempts by an historian to explain [[man's inhumanity to man]]".<ref>{{cite news |title=100 Notable Books of the Year |url=https://www.nytimes.com/ref/books/review/20061203notable-books.html |work=[[The New York Times]] |date=22 November 2006 |access-date=14 July 2008}}</ref> Ferguson addresses the paradox that, though the 20th century was "so bloody", it was also "a time of unparalleled [economic] progress". As with his earlier work ''Empire'', ''War of the World'' was accompanied by a Channel 4 television series presented by Ferguson.<ref>{{cite news |last=Chinnery |first=Kevin |date=28 May 2016 |title=Niall Ferguson finds the future in the past |url=http://www.afr.com/news/economy/monetary-policy/niall-ferguson-finds-the-future-in-the-past-20160527-gp557z |newspaper=[[Australian Financial Review]] |url-access=subscription}}</ref>

====''The Ascent of Money''====
Published in 2008, ''[[The Ascent of Money]]'' examines the [[history of money]], credit, and banking. In it, Ferguson predicts a [[financial crisis]] as a result of the [[world economy]] and in particular the United States using too much credit. He cites the [[China–United States relations|China–United States dynamic]] which he refers to as [[Chimerica]] where an Asian "[[savings glut]]" helped create the [[subprime mortgage crisis]] with an influx of easy money.<ref name="TheIndependent">{{cite news |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/the-ascent-of-money-by-niall-ferguson-980013.html |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220618/https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/the-ascent-of-money-by-niall-ferguson-980013.html |archive-date=18 June 2022 |url-access=subscription |url-status=live |title=The Ascent of Money, By Niall Ferguson |work=The Independent |access-date=30 November 2008 |first=Hamish |last=McRae |date=31 October 2008}}</ref>

====''Civilization''====
Published in 2011, ''Civilization: The West and the Rest'' examines what Ferguson calls the most "interesting question" of our day: "Why, [[List of regions by past GDP (PPP)#1–2008 (Maddison)|beginning around 1500]], did a few small polities on the western end of the Eurasian landmass come to dominate the rest of the world?".<ref name="Cox">{{cite web|last=Cox|first=Wendell|publisher=New Geography |date=21 September 2015|title=500 Years of GDP: A Tale of Two Countries |url=https://www.newgeography.com/content/005050-500-years-gdp-a-tale-two-countries#:~:text=1500%3A%20In%201500%2C%20China%20was,GDP's%20of%20approximately%20%24100%20billion.|access-date=4 September 2020}}</ref> In the review of Ferguson's book, ''[[The Economist]]'' wrote:

<blockquote>In 1500 Europe's future imperial powers controlled 10% of the world's territories and generated just over 40% of its wealth. By 1913, at the height of empire, the West controlled almost 60% of the territories, which together generated almost 80% of the wealth. This stunning fact is lost, he regrets, on a generation that has supplanted history's sweep with a feeble-minded relativism that holds "all civilisations as somehow equal".<ref name="A success that looks like failure">{{cite news|title=A success that looks like failure|newspaper=The Economist|date=10 March 2011|url=https://www.economist.com/culture/2011/03/10/a-success-that-looks-like-failure|access-date=23 April 2017}}</ref></blockquote>

Ferguson attributes this divergence to the West's development of six "[[Killer application|killer apps]]", which he finds were largely missing elsewhere in the world in 1500 – "[[competition]], the [[scientific method]], the [[rule of law]], [[Medicine#Modern|modern medicine]], [[consumerism]] and the [[Protestant work ethic]]".<ref name="guardian"/> Ferguson compared and contrasted how the West's "killer apps" allowed the West to triumph over "the Rest" citing examples.<ref name="A success that looks like failure" /> Ferguson argued the rowdy and savage competition between European merchants created far more wealth than did the static and ordered society of [[Qing dynasty|Qing China]]. Tolerance extended to thinkers like Sir [[Isaac Newton]] in [[Stuart period|Stuart England]] had no counterpart in the [[Ottoman Empire]], where [[Taqi ad-Din Muhammad ibn Ma'ruf|Takiyuddin]]'s state built observatory was eventually demolished due to political conflict. This ensured that Western civilization was capable of making scientific advances that Ottoman civilization never could. Respect for [[private property]] was far stronger in [[British America]] than it ever was in [[Spanish America]], which led to [[Anglo-America]] (the United States and Canada) becoming prosperous societies while [[Latin America]] was and remains mired in poverty.<ref name="A success that looks like failure" /> Ferguson also argued that the modern West had lost its edge and the future belongs to the nations of Asia, especially [[China]], which has adopted the West's "killer apps".<ref name="A success that looks like failure" /> Ferguson argues that in the coming years, we will see a steady decline of the West, while China and the rest of the Asian nations will be the rising powers.<ref name="A success that looks like failure" /> A related documentary ''[[Civilization: Is the West History?]]'' was broadcast as a six-part series on Channel 4 in March and April 2011.<ref>{{cite news |title=Civilization: Is the West History? |url=http://www.channel4.com/programmes/civilization-is-the-west-history |access-date=4 April 2011}}</ref>

====''Kissinger: 1923–1968: The Idealist''====
''Kissinger The Idealist'', Volume I, published in September 2015, is the first part of a planned two-part biography of [[Henry Kissinger]] based on his private papers. The book starts with a quote from a letter which Kissinger wrote in 1972. The book examines Kissinger's life from being a refugee and fleeing [[Nazi Germany]] in 1938, to serving in the [[United States Army]] as a "free man" in [[World War II]], to studying at [[Harvard University|Harvard]]. The book explores the history of Kissinger joining the [[Kennedy administration]] and later becoming critical of its foreign policy, to supporting [[Nelson Rockefeller]] on three failed presidential bids, to joining the [[Nixon administration]]. The book includes Kissinger's early evaluation of the [[Vietnam War]] and his efforts to negotiate with the [[North Vietnam]]ese in Paris ([[Paris Peace Accords]]). Historians and political scientists gave the book mixed reviews.<ref>{{cite web|title=H-Diplo Roundtable XVIII, 3 on Kissinger. Volume I. 1923–1968: The Idealist [16 September 2016] {{!}} H-Diplo {{!}} H-Net|url=https://networks.h-net.org/node/28443/discussions/143213/h-diplo-roundtable-xviii-3-kissinger-volume%E2%80%AFi-1923-1968-idealist|access-date=4 January 2021|website=networks.h-net.org}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|last=Grandin|first=Greg|author-link=Greg Grandin|date=15 October 2015|title=''Kissinger 1923–1968: The Idealist'' by Niall Ferguson review – a case of wobbly logic|url=http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/oct/15/kissinger-1923-to-1968-the-idealist-niall-ferguson-review-biography|access-date=4 January 2021|newspaper=[[The Guardian]]}}</ref>

In a review about ''The Idealist'', ''The Economist'' wrote: "Mr Ferguson, a British historian also at Harvard, has in the past sometimes produced work that is rushed and uneven. Not here. Like Mr Kissinger or loathe him, this is a work of engrossing scholarship."<ref>{{cite news | title = Ideas man America's greatest modern diplomat was also one of its great thinkers | newspaper =[[The Economist]]| date=3 October 2015| url = https://www.economist.com/news/books-and-arts/21669596-americas-greatest-modern-diplomat-was-also-one-its-great-thinkers-ideas-man | access-date = 31 May 2016}}</ref> In a negative review of ''The Idealist'', the American journalist Michael O'Donnell questioned Ferguson's interpretation of Kissinger's actions leading up to Nixon's election in 1968 as United States president.<ref>{{cite magazine| last = O'Donnell | first = Michael | title = Restoring Henry |magazine=[[Washington Monthly]]| date = September–October 2015 | url = http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/septemberoctober_2015/on_political_books/restoring_henry057190.php?page=all | access-date = 31 May 2016 | archive-date = 21 September 2015 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20150921155606/http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/septemberoctober_2015/on_political_books/restoring_henry057190.php?page=all | url-status = dead}}</ref> [[Andrew Roberts, Baron Roberts of Belgravia|Andrew Roberts]] praised the book in ''[[The New York Times]]'', concluding: "Niall Ferguson already has many important, scholarly and controversial books to his credit. But if the second volume of 'Kissinger' is anywhere near as comprehensive, well written and riveting as the first, this will be his masterpiece."<ref>{{cite news |last1=Roberts |first1=Andrew |title=Niall Ferguson's 'Kissinger. Volume I. 1923–1968: The Idealist' |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/04/books/review/niall-fergusons-kissinger-volume-i.html |newspaper=[[The New York Times]] |date=30 September 2015 |access-date=30 September 2015}}</ref>

====''The Square and the Tower''====
In 2018's ''[[The Square and the Tower]]'', Ferguson proposed a modified version of [[group selection]] that history can be explained by the evolution of human networks. He wrote, "Man, with his unrivaled neural network, was born ''to'' network."<ref>{{cite book|last1=Ferguson|first1=Niall|title=The Square and the Tower: Networks and Power, from the Freemasons to Facebook|date=2017|publisher=Penguin|location=New York}}</ref> The title refers to a transition from hierarchical "tower" networks to flatter "square" network connections between individuals. In a review of the book, [[John Gray (philosopher)|John Gray]] was not convinced. He wrote, "[Ferguson] offers a mix of metaphor and what purports to be a new science."<ref>{{cite magazine |last=Gray |first=John |author-link=John Gray (philosopher) |date=22 March 2018 |title=Circling the Square |url=http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2018/03/22/niall-ferguson-circling-square/ |magazine=[[The New York Review of Books]] |volume=LXV |issue=5 |pages=28–29}}</ref> In ''[[The Wall Street Journal]]'', Deirdre McCloskey wrote: "Niall Ferguson has again written a brilliant book, this time in defence of traditional top-down principles of governing the wild market and the wilder international order. ''The Square and the Tower'' raises the question of just how much the unruly world should be governed{{snd}}and by whom. Not everyone will agree, but everyone will be charmed and educated. ... ''The Square and the Tower'' is always readable, intelligent, original. You can swallow a chapter a night before sleep and your dreams will overflow with scenes of Stendhal's ''[[The Red and the Black]]'', Napoleon, Kissinger. In 400 pages you will have restocked your mind. Do it."<ref>{{cite news |last1=McCloskey |first1=Deirdre |title=Review: The Great and the Good |url=https://www.wsj.com/articles/review-the-great-and-the-good-1515794202 |newspaper=The Wall Street Journal |date=12 January 2018 |access-date=12 January 2018}}</ref>

====''Doom: The Politics of Catastrophe''====
In this book, Ferguson offers a global history of disaster. Damon Linker of ''The New York Times'' argues that the book is "often insightful, productively provocative and downright brilliant", and suggests that Ferguson displays "an impressive command of the latest research in a large number of specialized fields, among them [[medical history]], [[epidemiology]], [[probability theory]], [[cliodynamics]] and [[network theory]]."<ref name="linker1">{{cite news |last=Linker|first=Damon|author-link=Damon Linker|title=Niall Ferguson Examines Disasters of the Past and Disasters Still to Come |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/04/books/review/niall-ferguson-doom.html |access-date=5 May 2021 |newspaper=[[The New York Times]]|date=4 May 2021}}</ref> Linker also criticises the book's "perplexing lacunae".<ref name="linker1"/> In a review for ''[[The Times]]'' of London, [[David Aaronovitch]] described Ferguson's theory as "nebulous".<ref name="aaronovitch">{{cite news |last1=Aaronovitch |first1=David|author-link=David Aaronovitch|title=''Doom: The Politics of Catastrophe'' by Niall Ferguson review — the history of disaster, as told by a superspreader |url=https://www.thetimes.com/article/doom-the-politics-of-catastrophe-by-niall-ferguson-review-s30rn2d27 |access-date=24 April 2021|newspaper=[[The Times]]|date=23 April 2021}}</ref>

==Opinions, views and research==
{{Conservatism UK|Intellectuals}}
Ferguson has been referred to as a [[conservative]] historian by some commentators and fellow historians.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/media/2018/jun/02/niall-ferguson-quits-stanford-free-speech-role-over-leaked-emails|title=Niall Ferguson quits Stanford free speech role over leaked emails|newspaper=[[The Guardian]]|date=2 June 2018}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/the-ascent-of-niall-ferguson|title = The Ascent of Niall Ferguson}}</ref> Ferguson himself stated in a 2018 interview on the ''[[Rubin Report]]'' that his views align to [[classical liberalism]],<ref>{{YouTube|id=v=MdeFJ4WCqhk}}</ref> and has referred to himself as a "classic [[Scottish Enlightenment|Scottish enlightenment]] liberal" on other occasions.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/feb/20/niall-ferguson-interview-civilization|title = Niall Ferguson: 'Westerners don't understand how vulnerable freedom is'|newspaper=[[The Guardian]]|date = 20 February 2011}}</ref> Some of his research and conclusions have been criticised by commentators on the [[political left]].<ref name="guardian" /> In a 2011 interview, Ferguson said elements of the left "love being provoked by me! Honestly, it makes them feel so much better about their lives to think that I'm a reactionary; it's a substitute for thought. "Imperialist scumbag" and all that. Oh dear, we're back in a 1980s student union debate."<ref name="The Guardian" /> Ferguson endorsed [[Kemi Badenoch]]'s campaign during the [[July 2022 Conservative Party leadership election]].<ref name="auto6">{{cite tweet |user=nfergus |number=1549367784080961537 |title=The rise of the very talented @KemiBadenoch is truly remarkable. She would be a Tory Obama if she won this. The whole leadership contest is a disaster for the bogus narrative that Brexit was motivated by racism and / or nostalgia for Empire.}}</ref>

===World War I===
In 1998, Ferguson published ''The Pity of War: Explaining World War One'', which with the help of [[research assistant]]s he was able to write in just five months.<ref name="Niall Ferguson, Senior Fellow">[http://www.hoover.org/bios/ferguson.html Niall Ferguson, Senior Fellow] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080720163432/http://www.hoover.org/bios/ferguson.html |date=20 July 2008 }} Hoover Institution, 30 November 2011.</ref><ref name=RobertBoynton /> This is an analytic account of what Ferguson considered to be the ten great myths of the [[Great War]]. The book generated much controversy, particularly Ferguson's suggestion that it might have proved more beneficial for Europe if Britain had stayed out of the First World War in 1914, thereby allowing Germany to win.{{sfn|Ferguson|1999|pp=460–461}}

Ferguson has argued that the British decision to intervene was what stopped a German victory in 1914–15. Furthermore, Ferguson expressed disagreement with the ''[[Sonderweg]]'' interpretation of German history championed by some German historians such as [[Fritz Fischer (historian)|Fritz Fischer]], [[Hans-Ulrich Wehler]], [[Hans Mommsen]], and [[Wolfgang Mommsen]], who argued that the [[German Empire]] deliberately started an aggressive war in 1914. Likewise, Ferguson has often attacked the work of the German historian [[Michael Stürmer]], who argued that it was Germany's geographical situation in [[Central Europe]] that determined the course of German history. On the contrary, Ferguson maintained that Germany waged a [[preventive war]] in 1914, a war largely forced on the Germans by reckless and irresponsible British diplomacy. In particular, Ferguson accused the British foreign secretary [[Edward Grey, 1st Viscount Grey of Fallodon|Sir Edward Grey]] of maintaining an ambiguous attitude to the question of whether Britain would enter the war or not, and thus confusing Berlin over just what was the British attitude towards the question of intervention in the war.{{sfn|Ferguson|1999|pp=154–156}}

Ferguson accused London of unnecessarily allowing a regional war in Europe to escalate into a world war. Moreover, Ferguson denied that the origins of [[Nazism|National Socialism]] could be traced back to Imperial Germany; instead Ferguson asserted the [[Early timeline of Nazism|origins of Nazism]] could only be traced back to the First World War and its aftermath.

Ferguson attacked a number of ideas that he called "myths" in the book. They are listed here (with his counter-arguments in parentheses):
* That Germany was a highly [[Militarism|militarist]] country before 1914 (Ferguson claims Germany was Europe's most anti-militarist country).{{sfn|Ferguson|1999|pp=27–30}}
* That naval challenges mounted by Germany drove Britain into [[Entente Cordiale|informal alliances with France]] and [[Anglo–Russian Convention|Russia]] before 1914 (Ferguson claims the British chose alliances with France and Russia as a form of appeasement due to the strength of those nations, and an Anglo-German alliance failed to materialize due to German weakness).{{sfn|Ferguson|1999|pp=52–55}}
* That [[Foreign relations of the United Kingdom|British foreign policy]] was driven by legitimate fears of Germany (Ferguson claims Germany posed no threat to Britain before 1914, and that all British fears of Germany were due to irrational [[Anti-German sentiment|anti-German prejudices]]).{{sfn|Ferguson|1999|pp=68–76}}
* That the pre-1914 arms race was consuming ever larger portions of [[Government budget|national budgets]] at an unsustainable rate (Ferguson claims that the only limitations on more [[Military budget|military spending]] before 1914 were political, not economic).{{sfn|Ferguson|1999|pp=87–101, 118–125}}
* That World War I was, as [[Fritz Fischer (historian)|Fritz Fischer]] claimed, a war of aggression on the part of Germany that necessitated British involvement to stop Germany from conquering Europe (Ferguson claims that if Germany had been victorious, something like the European Union would have been created in 1914, and that it would have been for the best if Britain had chosen to opt out of war in 1914).<ref name=berghahn>[https://www.nytimes.com/books/99/05/09/reviews/990509.09berghat.html "No Man's Land"] by [[Volker Berghahn|V. R. Berghahn]]. ''[[The New York Times]]'', 9 May 1999.</ref>
* That most people were happy with the outbreak of war in 1914 (Ferguson claims that most Europeans were saddened by the coming of war).<ref name=berghahn />
* That [[Propaganda in World War I|propaganda]] was successful in making men wish to fight (Ferguson argues the opposite).{{sfn|Ferguson|1999|pp=239–247}}
* That the [[Allies of World War I|Allies]] made the best use of their economic resources (Ferguson argues that the Allies "squandered" their economic resources).<ref name=berghahn />
* That the [[British Army|British]] and the [[French Army|French]] had the better armies (Ferguson claims the [[Imperial German Army|German Army]] was superior).{{sfn|Ferguson|1999|pp=310–317}}
* That the Allies were more efficient at killing Germans (Ferguson argues that the Germans were more efficient at killing the Allies).{{sfn|Ferguson|1999|pp=336–338}}
* That most soldiers hated fighting in the war (Ferguson argues most soldiers fought more or less willingly).{{sfn|Ferguson|1999|pp=357–366}}
* That the British treated German prisoners of war well (Ferguson argues the British routinely killed German POWs).{{sfn|Ferguson|1999|pp=380–388}}
* That Germany was faced with [[World War I reparations|reparations]] after 1921 that could not be paid except at ruinous economic cost (Ferguson argues that Germany could easily have paid reparations had there been the political will).{{sfn|Ferguson|1999|pp=412–431}}

Ferguson uses [[counterfactual history]] in the book. He presents a hypothetical version of Europe being, under Imperial German domination, a peaceful, prosperous, democratic continent, without ideologies like [[communism]] or [[Italian fascism]].<ref name="Ferguson, Niall 1998, pages 168">{{harvnb|Ferguson|1999|pp=168–173, 460–461}}</ref> In Ferguson's view, had Germany won World War I, then the lives of millions would have been saved, something like the [[European Union]] would have been founded in 1914, and Britain would have remained an empire as well as the world's dominant financial power.<ref name="Ferguson, Niall 1998, pages 168" />

The French historians Stéphane Audoin-Rouzeau and Annette Becker were dubious about much of Ferguson's methodology and conclusions in ''The Pity of War'', but praised him for the chapter dealing with the executions of [[POWs]], arguing that Ferguson had exposed a dark side of the war that until then had been ignored.<ref>Audoin-Rouzeau, Stéphane and Becker, Annette ''14–18: Understanding the Great War'', New York: Hill and Wang, 2014 p. 84.</ref> About ''The Pity of War'', the American academic [[Michael Lind]] wrote:

<blockquote>Like the historian [[John Charmley]], who expressed the same wish in the case of World War II, Ferguson belongs to the fringe element of British conservatism that regrets the absence of a German-British deal in the first half of the 20th century that would have marginalized the United States and might have allowed the British Empire to survive to this day. According to Ferguson, Britain should have stayed out of World War I and allowed Imperial Germany to smash France and Russia and create a continental empire from the Atlantic to the Middle East. The joke is on Ferguson's [[American conservative]] admirers, inasmuch as he laments the defeat of the Kaiser's Germany because it accelerated the replacement of the British Empire by the United States of America and the eclipse of the City of London by Wall Street.<ref name="Lind"/></blockquote>

The German-born American historian [[Gerhard Weinberg]] in a review of ''The Pity of War'' strongly criticized Ferguson for advancing the thesis that it was idiotic for Britain to have fought a Germany that allegedly posed no danger.<ref name="Weinberg pages 281-282">{{cite journal|last=Weinberg|first=Gerhard|author-link=Gerhard Weinberg|title=Review of ''The Pity of War''|page=281 (281–282)|journal=[[Central European History]]|volume=33|issue=2|date=June 2000|doi=10.1017/S0008938900003447 }}</ref> Weinberg accused Ferguson of completely ignoring the chief foreign policy aim of [[Wilhelm II]] from 1897 onwards, namely ''[[Weltpolitik]]'' ("World Politics"), and argued it was absurd for Ferguson to claim that allowing Germany to defeat France and Russia would have posed no danger to Britain.<ref name="Weinberg pages 281-282"/> Weinberg wrote that Ferguson was wrong to claim that Germany's interests were limited only to Europe, and maintained that if the ''Reich'' had defeated France in 1914, then Germany would have taken over the [[French colonial empire|French colonies in Asia and Africa]], which would have definitely affected the [[Balance of power (international relations)|balance of power]] all over the world, not just in Europe.<ref name="Weinberg pages 281-282"/> Finally, Weinberg attacked Ferguson for claiming that the [[Tirpitz Plan]] was not a danger to Britain and that Britain had no reason to fear Germany's naval ambitions, sarcastically asking if that was really the case, then why did the British redeploy so much of their fleet from around the world to the [[North Sea]] and spend so much money building warships in the [[Anglo-German naval arms race]]?<ref name="Weinberg pages 281-282" /> Weinberg accused Ferguson of distorting both German and British history and ignoring any evidence that did not fit with his thesis that Britain should never have fought Germany, stating that ''The Pity of War'' was interesting as a historical provocation but was not persuasive as history.{{sfn|Weinberg|2000|p=282}}

===Rothschilds===
Ferguson wrote two volumes about the prominent [[Rothschild family]]: ''The House of Rothschild: Volume 1: Money's Prophets: 1798–1848'' and ''The House of Rothschild: Volume 2: The World's Banker: 1849–1999''. These books were the result of original archival research.<ref name=wells>Benjamin Wallace-Wells  [http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2004/0406.wallace-wells.html "Right Man's Burden"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061109201139/http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2004/0406.wallace-wells.html |date=9 November 2006 }}, ''[[Washington Monthly]]'', June 2004.</ref> The books won the Wadsworth Prize for Business History and were also short-listed for the [[Jewish Quarterly-Wingate Literary Award]] and the [[Jewish Book Council|American National Jewish Book Award]].<ref name="nfbio" />

The books were widely acclaimed by historians,<ref name=wells /> although they received some criticism. [[John Lewis Gaddis]], a [[Cold War]]-era historian, praised Ferguson's "unrivaled range, productivity and visibility", while criticising the book as unpersuasive and containing contradictory claims.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/25/books/the-last-empire-for-now.html |newspaper=[[The New York Times]] |title=The Last Empire, for Now|first=John Lewis |last=Gaddis|author-link=John Lewis Gaddis|date=25 July 2004 |access-date=5 May 2012}}</ref> Marxist historian [[Eric Hobsbawm]] had praised Ferguson as an excellent historian but criticised him as a "nostalgist for empire".<ref>Eric Hobsbawm, ''Globalisation, Democracy and Terrorism'' (Abacus, 2008).</ref><ref>[https://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/factual/starttheweek_20060612.shtml ''Start the Week''], BBC Radio 4, 12 June 2006.</ref> In a mixed review of a later book by Ferguson, ''The War of the World: History's Age of Hatred'', a reviewer for ''The Economist'' described how many regard Ferguson's two books on the Rothschilds "as one of the finest studies of its kind".<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.economist.com/books-and-arts/2006/06/01/times-mortuary|title=Time's mortuary|date=1 June 2006|newspaper=[[The Economist]]|access-date=29 June 2017}}</ref> Jeremy Wormell wrote that while ''The World's Banker: A History of the House of Rothschild'' had its virtues, it contained "many errors" which meant it was "unsafe to use it as a source for the debt markets".<ref>{{cite web|title=The World's Banker: a History of the House of Rothschild {{!}} Reviews in History|url=https://reviews.history.ac.uk/review/213|access-date=4 January 2021|website=reviews.history.ac.uk}}</ref>

Writing in ''[[The New York Review of Books]]'', Robert Skidelsky praised Ferguson, stating: "Taken together, Ferguson's two volumes are a stupendous achievement, a triumph of historical research and imagination. No serious historian can write about the connection between the politics, diplomacy, and economics of the nineteenth century in the same way again. And, as any good work of history should do, it constantly prompts us to ask questions about our own age, when once again we have embarked on the grand experiment of a world economy without a world government."<ref>{{cite magazine |last1=Skidelsky |first1=Robert |title=Family Values |url=https://www.nybooks.com/articles/1999/12/16/family-values/ |website=www.nybooks.com |publisher=The New York Review of Books |date=16 November 1999}}</ref>

===Counterfactual history===
Ferguson sometimes uses counterfactual history, also known as "speculative" or "hypothetical" history, and edited a collection of essays, titled ''Virtual History: Alternatives and Counterfactuals'' (1997), exploring the subject. Ferguson likes to imagine alternative outcomes as a way of stressing the contingent aspects of history. For Ferguson, great forces don't make history; individuals do, and nothing is predetermined. Thus, for Ferguson, there are no paths in history that will determine how things will work out. The world is neither progressing nor regressing; only the actions of individuals determine whether we will live in a better or worse world. His championing of the method has been controversial within the field.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://globetrotter.berkeley.edu/people3/Ferguson/ferguson-con2.html |title=Conversation with Niall Ferguson: Being a Historian |access-date=15 July 2008 |work=Conversations with History |publisher=Regents of the University of California |date=3 November 2003 |last=Kreisler |first=Harry |archive-date=6 July 2008 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080706200525/http://globetrotter.berkeley.edu/people3/Ferguson/ferguson-con2.html |url-status=dead }}</ref> In a 2011 review of Ferguson's book ''Civilization: The West and the Rest'', [[Noel Malcolm]] (senior research fellow in history at [[All Souls College]] at [[Oxford University]]) stated: "Students may find this an intriguing introduction to a wide range of human history; but they will get an odd idea of how historical argument is to be conducted, if they learn it from this book."<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/8371304/Civilisation-The-West-and-the-Rest-by-Niall-Ferguson-review.html |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220112/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/8371304/Civilisation-The-West-and-the-Rest-by-Niall-Ferguson-review.html |archive-date=12 January 2022 |url-access=subscription |url-status=live |work=[[The Daily Telegraph]] |first=Noel |last=Malcolm |title=Civilisation: The West and the Rest by Niall Ferguson: review |date=13 March 2011 |quote=The patient testing of evidence must give way to startling statistics, gripping anecdotes and snappy phrase-making. Niall Ferguson is never unintelligent and certainly never dull. Students may find this an intriguing introduction to a wide range of human history; but they will get an odd idea of how historical argument is to be conducted, if they learn it from this book}}{{cbignore}}</ref>

===Henry Kissinger===
In 2003, former American secretary of state [[Henry Kissinger]] provided Ferguson with access to his [[White House]] diaries, letters, and archives for what Ferguson calls a "warts-and-all biography" of Kissinger.<ref>{{cite news |last=Hagan |first=Joe |date=27 November 2006 |title=The Once and Future Kissinger |url=http://nymag.com/news/people/24750/ |newspaper=[[New York (magazine)|New York]] |access-date=14 July 2008}}</ref> In 2015, he published the first volume in a two-part biography titled ''Kissinger: 1923–1968: The Idealist'' from Penguin Press. The thesis of this first volume was that Kissinger was greatly influenced in his academic and political development by the philosopher [[Immanuel Kant]], and especially by an interpretation of Kant that he learned from a mentor at Harvard University, [[William Yandell Elliott]].{{citation needed|date=September 2023}}

===British Empire===
Ferguson has defended the [[British Empire]], stating, "I think it's hard to make the case, which implicitly the left makes, that somehow the world would have been better off if the Europeans had stayed home."<ref name="guardian"/> Ferguson is critical of what he calls the "self-flagellation" that he says characterises modern European thought.<ref name="guardian"/>

<blockquote>The moral simplification urge is an extraordinarily powerful one, especially in this country, where imperial guilt can lead to self-flagellation. ... And it leads to very simplistic judgments. The rulers of [[western Africa]] prior to the European empires were not running some kind of scout camp. They were engaged in the [[Atlantic slave trade]]. They showed zero sign of developing the country's economic resources. Did [[Senegal]] ultimately benefit from [[French Senegal|French rule]]? Yes, it's clear. And the counterfactual idea that somehow the indigenous rulers would have been more successful in [[economic development]] doesn't have any credibility at all.<ref name="guardian"/></blockquote>

====Critical views of Ferguson and empire====
Historians and commentators have considered his views on this issue and expressed their critical evaluation in various terms, from "audacious" yet "wrong",<ref>{{cite news|url=http://www.theguardian.com/books/2003/jan/18/featuresreviews.guardianreview5|title=Review: ''Empire'' by Niall Ferguson|date=18 January 2003|newspaper=[[The Guardian]]|access-date=19 April 2021}}</ref> "informative",<ref>{{cite web |title=Review Niall Ferguson, Empire: The Rise and Demise of the British World Order and the Lessons for Global Power (New York: Basic Books, 2003), 384 pp. |url=http://www.hcs.harvard.edu/tempus/Book_Reviews_files/olsenreview.pdf |access-date=2 June 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180612143137/http://www.hcs.harvard.edu/tempus/Book_Reviews_files/olsenreview.pdf |archive-date=12 June 2018 |url-status=dead }}</ref> "ambitious" and "troubling", to "false and dangerous" apologia.<ref name="Jon-Wilson-2003-False-dangerous" /><ref>{{cite magazine |last1=Hoffmann |first1=Stanley |title=Empire: The Rise and Demise of the British World Order and Its Lessons for Global Power, Review|magazine=[[Foreign Affairs]]|date=28 January 2009 |url=https://www.foreignaffairs.com/reviews/capsule-review/2003-09-01/empire-rise-and-demise-british-world-order-and-its-lessons-global}}</ref> [[Richard Drayton]], [[Rhodes Professor of Imperial History]] at [[King's College London]], has stated that it was correct of [[Seumas Milne]] to associate "Ferguson with an attempt to 'rehabilitate empire' in the service of contemporary great power interests".<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.theguardian.com/education/2010/jun/16/british-empire-kenya-deaths |newspaper=[[The Guardian]]|title=Letters: The British empire and deaths in Kenya |date=16 June 2010}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2010/jun/10/british-empire-michael-gove-history-teaching|title=This attempt to rehabilitate empire is a recipe for conflict|date=10 June 2010|newspaper=[[The Guardian]]|last1=Milne |first1=Seumas }}</ref> In November 2011, [[Pankaj Mishra]] reviewed ''Civilisation: The West and the Rest'' unfavourably in the ''London Review of Books''.<ref>{{cite magazine |last=Mishra |first=Pankaj |author-link=Pankaj Mishra |date=3 November 2011 |title=Watch this man |magazine=[[London Review of Books]] |volume=33 |issue=21 |pages=10–12 |url=https://www.lrb.co.uk/v33/n21/pankaj-mishra/watch-this-man |access-date=2 June 2013}}</ref> Ferguson demanded an apology and threatened to sue Mishra on charges of [[libel]] due to allegations of racism.<ref>{{cite news |last=Beaumont |first=Peter |title=Niall Ferguson threatens to sue over accusation of racism |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/nov/26/niall-ferguson-pankaj-mishra-review |access-date=4 September 2012 |newspaper=[[The Guardian]]|date=26 November 2011}}</ref>

Jon Wilson, a professor of the Department of History at King's College London, is the author of ''[[India Conquered]]'', a 2016 book intended to rebut Ferguson's arguments in ''Empire: How Britain Made the Modern World'', who catalogues the negative elements of the [[British Raj]],<ref name="simonandschuster">{{cite book|url=http://www.simonandschuster.co.uk/books/India-Conquered/Jon-Wilson/9781471101250|title=India Conquered|publisher=Simon & Schuster UK|date=10 August 2017|isbn=9781471101267|access-date=28 August 2017|last1=Wilson|first1=Jon}}</ref> and describes the ''Empire'' TV program (2003) as "false and dangerous".<ref name="Jon-Wilson-2003-False-dangerous"/> Wilson agrees with Ferguson's point that the British innovations brought to India [[civil service]]s, [[education]], and [[railways]], and had beneficial [[side effect]]s, but faults them for being done in a spirit of [[self-interest]] rather than [[altruism]].<ref name="simonandschuster"/><ref name="Hindu.com">{{cite news|url=https://www.thehindu.com/features/metroplus/%E2%80%98The-job-of-a-historian-is-to-be-diagnostic%E2%80%99/article16441788.ece|access-date=28 December 2024|url-access=subscription|title=Jon Wilson: 'The job of a historian is to be diagnostic'|first=Anuj |last=Kumar|newspaper=[[The Hindu]]|date=10 November 2016}}</ref>

About Ferguson's claim that Britain "made the modern world" by spreading [[democracy]], [[free trade]], [[capitalism]], the [[rule of law]], [[Protestantism]], and the [[English language]], Wilson charged that Ferguson never explained precisely how this was done,<ref>{{cite journal|last=Wilson|first=Jon|title=Niall Ferguson's Imperial Passion|pages=175–183 (177)|journal=[[History Workshop Journal]]|issue=56|date=Autumn 2003b|jstor=4289864}}</ref> arguing that the reason was the lack of interest in the history of the people ruled by the British on Ferguson's part, who therefore could not perceive that the interaction between the colonisers and the colonised in places like India, where the population embraced aspects of [[British culture]] and rule that were appealing to them while rejecting others that were unappealing.<ref name="auto3">{{harvnb|Wilson|2003b|p=179}}</ref> Wilson argues that this interaction between the rulers and the ruled is more complex, and contradicts Ferguson's one-sided picture of the British "transforming" India that portrays the British as active and the Indians as passive.<ref name="auto3" /> Wilson charged that Ferguson failed to look at the empire via non-British eyes because to do so would be to challenge his claim that Britain "made the modern world" by imposing its values on "the Other", and that the history of the empire was far more complicated than the simplistic version that Ferguson is trying to present.<ref name="auto3" />

===Islam and "Eurabia"===
Ferguson has endorsed the work of [[Bat Ye'or]] and her Eurabia conspiracy theory,<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Zia-Ebrahimi |first1=Reza |title=When the Elders of Zion relocated to Eurabia: conspiratorial racialization in antisemitism and Islamophobia |journal=Patterns of Prejudice |date=2018 |volume=52 |issue=4 |pages=314–337 |doi=10.1080/0031322X.2018.1493876|s2cid=148601759 |url=https://kclpure.kcl.ac.uk/portal/en/publications/when-the-elders-of-zion-relocated-to-eurabia(a7b5707f-eed2-4cf6-9568-a35db586bdf8).html }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|last1=Meer|first1=Nasar|title=Racialization and religion: race, culture and difference in the study of antisemitism and Islamophobia|journal=Ethnic and Racial Studies|date=March 2013|volume=36|issue=3|pages=385–398|doi=10.1080/01419870.2013.734392|s2cid=144942470|quote=The protocols of Eurabia}}</ref> providing a cover comment for her 2005 ''Eurabia'' book, in which he stated that "no writer has done more than Bat Ye'or to draw attention to the menacing character of Islamic extremism. Future historians will one day regard her coinage of the term '[[Eurabia]]' as prophetic."<ref>{{cite journal|url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/263485050|title=Eurabia Comes to Norway|page=19|journal=Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations|date=July 2013|doi=10.1080/09596410.2013.783969|first=Sindre|last=Bangstad|volume=24 |issue=3 |s2cid=145132618 }}</ref> Matthew Carr wrote in ''[[Race & Class]]'' that "Niall Ferguson, the conservative English historian and enthusiastic advocate of a new American empire, has also embraced the Eurabian idea in a widely reproduced article entitled 'Eurabia?'",<ref>Niall Ferguson [https://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/04/magazine/the-way-we-live-now-4-4-04-eurabia.html "The way we live now: 4-4-04; Eurabia?"], ''[[The New York Times]]'', 4 April 2004</ref> in which he laments the "de-Christianization of Europe" and the secularism of the continent that leaves it "weak in the face of fanaticism". Carr adds that "Ferguson sees the recent establishment of a department of [[Islamic studies]] in his (Oxford college) as another symptom of 'the creeping [[Islamization|Islamicization]] of a decadent [[Christendom]]'&thinsp;", and in a 2004 lecture at the [[American Enterprise Institute]] entitled "The End of Europe?"<ref>Niall Ferguson [http://www.travelbrochuregraphics.com/extra/end_of_europe.htm The end of Europe?] American Enterprise Institute Bradley Lecture, 1 March 2004 {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110928054328/http://www.travelbrochuregraphics.com/extra/end_of_europe.htm |date=28 September 2011 }}</ref>

<blockquote>Ferguson struck a similarly [[Oswald Spengler|Spenglerian]] note, conjuring the term "impire" to depict a process in which a 'political entity, instead of expanding outwards towards its periphery, exporting power, implodes—when the energies come from outside into that entity'. In Ferguson's opinion, this process was already under way in a decadent '[[Postchristianity|post-Christian]]' Europe that was drifting inexorably towards the dark denouement of a vanquished civilisation and the fatal embrace of Islam.<ref>{{cite journal | last1 = Carr | first1 = M. | doi = 10.1177/0306396806066636 | title = You are now entering Eurabia | journal = Race & Class | volume = 48 | pages = 1–22| year = 2006 | s2cid = 145303405 }}</ref></blockquote>

Ferguson deplored the [[November 2015 Paris attacks]] committed by [[Islamic State]] terrorists but stated he was not going to "stand" with the French as he argued that France was a lost cause, a declining state faced with an unstoppable Islamic wave that would sweep away everything that tried to oppose it.<ref name="Ferguson">{{cite news| last =  Ferguson  | first = Niall  | title = Paris and the fall of Rome | newspaper = [[The Boston Globe]] | date=16 November 2015| url = https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2015/11/16/paris-and-fall-rome/ErlRjkQMGXhvDarTIxXpdK/story.html| access-date = 31 May 2016}}</ref> Ferguson compared the modern [[European Union]] to the [[Western Roman Empire]], describing modern Europe as not that different from the world depicted by [[Edward Gibbon]] in his book ''[[The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire]]''.<ref name="Ferguson"/> Ferguson wrote:

<blockquote>Uncannily similar processes are destroying the European Union today... Let us be clear about what is happening. Like the Roman Empire in the early fifth century, Europe has allowed its defenses to crumble. As its wealth has grown, so its military prowess has shrunk, along with its self-belief. It has grown decadent in its shopping malls and sports stadiums. At the same time, it has opened its gates to outsiders who have coveted its wealth without renouncing their ancestral faith.<ref name="Ferguson"/></blockquote>

About the [[2015 European migrant crisis]], Ferguson wrote the mass influx of refugees into Europe from Syria was a modern version of the ''[[Völkerwanderung]]'' when the [[Huns]] burst out of Asia and invaded Europe, causing millions of the [[Germanic peoples]] to flee into the presumed safety of the [[Roman Empire]], smashing their way in as the Romans attempted unsuccessfully to stop the Germans from entering the empire.<ref name="Ferguson"/> Ferguson argued that Gibbon was wrong to claim the Roman Empire collapsed slowly and argues that the view among a growing number of modern scholars is that the [[collapse of the Roman Empire]] was swift and violent; unforeseeable by Romans of the day, just as the collapse of modern European civilization would likewise be for modern Europeans.<ref name="Ferguson"/> In 2017, Ferguson opined that the West had insufficiently heeded the rise of militant Islam and its global consequences in the same way it failed to predict that the rise of [[Vladimir Lenin]] would lead to the further spread of communism and conflict around the world.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.niallferguson.com/journalism/history/we-let-lenin-rise-millions-died.-now-its-islamism|title=We let Lenin rise, millions died. Now it's Islamism|first=Niall|last=Ferguson|website=Niall Ferguson|access-date=19 April 2021|archive-date=16 May 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210516054811/https://www.niallferguson.com/journalism/history/we-let-lenin-rise-millions-died.-now-its-islamism|url-status=dead|ref=none}}</ref>

<blockquote>Ask yourself how effectively we in the West have responded to the rise of militant Islam since the [[Iranian Revolution]] unleashed its [[Shia Islam|Shi'ite]] variant and since [[September 11 attacks|9/11]] revealed the even more aggressive character of [[Sunni Islam|Sunni]] [[Islamism]]. I fear we have done no better than our grandfathers did.

Foreign intervention—the millions of dollars that have found their way from the [[Arab states of the Persian Gulf|Gulf]] to radical mosques and Islamic centres in the West.

Incompetent liberals—the proponents of [[multiculturalism]] who brand any opponent of [[jihad]] an "[[Islamophobe]]". Clueless bankers—the sort who fall over themselves to offer "sharia-compliant" loans and bonds. Fellow travellers—the leftists who line up with the [[Muslim Brotherhood]] to castigate Israel at every opportunity. And the faint-hearted—those who were so quick to [[Withdrawal of United States troops from Iraq (2007–2011)|pull out of Iraq]] in 2009 that they allowed the rump of [[al-Qaeda]] to morph into Isis.

A century ago it was the West's great blunder to think it would not matter if [[Russian Revolution|Lenin and his confederates took over the Russian Empire]], despite their stated intention to plot [[world revolution]] and overthrow both democracy and capitalism. Incredible as it may seem, I believe we are capable of repeating that catastrophic error. I fear that, one day, we shall wake with a start to discover that the Islamists have repeated the [[Bolshevik]] achievement, which was to acquire the resources and capability to threaten our existence.</blockquote>

During a 2018 debate, Ferguson asserted that he is not [[anti-immigration]] or opposed to Muslims but felt that sections of Europe's political and intellectual classes had failed to predict the cultural and political consequences of large scale immigration. He stated that Islam differs from [[Judaism]] and [[Christianity]] through being "designed differently" as a political ideology that does not recognize the separation of mosque with the secular and temporal, and that the Muslim world has mostly followed an opposite trend to [[Western world|Western society]] by becoming less secularized and more literal in interpreting [[Religious text|holy scripture]].<ref name="auto5">{{cite tweet|number=973638691108290561|user=nfergus|title=A sometimes heated conversation with...|date=13 March 2018}}</ref> He concluded that if Europe kept pursuing large scale migration from pious Muslim societies combined with poor structures of economic and [[Cultural assimilation|cultural integration]], especially in an era when existing migrant communities are either unassimilated or loosely integrated into the host society, it is "highly likely" that networks of fundamentalist ''[[dawah]]'' will grow in which [[Islamic extremists]] draw in the culturally and economically unassimilated Muslims of immigrant backgrounds. Ferguson observed that even when living in Western nations, both he and his wife [[Ayaan Hirsi Ali]] have to live with permanent security measures as a result of her public critiques of Islam and status as a former Muslim.<ref name="auto5" />

===Iraq War===
Ferguson supported the [[Iraq War]] and described himself a month after the invasion of Iraq in 2003, as ‘a fully paid-up member of the neo-imperialist gang’<ref>{{Cite news|title=Past Master|url=https://highprofiles.info/interview/niall-ferguson/}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news|title=Ferguson Interview|url=https://gregmankiw.blogspot.com/2006/09/ferguson-interview.html}}</ref> and he is on record as being not necessarily opposed to future Western incursions around the world.

<blockquote>It's all very well for us to sit here in the West with our high incomes and cushy lives, and say it's immoral to violate the [[sovereignty]] of another state. But if the effect of that is to bring people in that country economic and political freedom, to raise their standard of living, to increase their life expectancy, then don't rule it out.<ref name="guardian" /></blockquote>

===Donald Trump===
Ferguson was initially skeptical of [[Donald Trump]]'s bid for the [[2016 United States presidential election]]. During the [[2016 Republican Party presidential primaries]], Ferguson was quoted in early 2016: "If you bother to read some of the serious analysis of Trump's support, you realize that it's a very fragile thing and highly unlikely to deliver what he needs in the crucial first phase of the primaries ... By the time we get to March–April, it's all over. I think there's going to be a wonderful catharsis, I'm really looking forward to it: Trump's humiliation. Bring it on."<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-01-21/trump-fear-stalks-davos-as-elite-pray-for-spring-reality-check|title=The Specter of Donald Trump Is Haunting Davos|newspaper=Bloomberg.com |date=21 January 2016 |via=www.bloomberg.com}}</ref> Trump eventually won the nomination. After [[Brexit]], Ferguson stated that Trump could win via the [[United States Electoral College|Electoral College]] if certain demographics turned out to vote in key [[swing state]]s.<ref>{{cite news |last=Ferguson |first=Niall |date=6 November 2016 |title=Trump pitches, Clinton swings. But the size of the crowd is key to this game |url=https://www.thetimes.com/comment/article/trump-pitches-clinton-swings-but-the-size-of-the-crowd-is-key-to-this-game-c2r5tp2pb |newspaper=[[The Times]] |access-date=16 February 2019 |url-access=subscription}}</ref> Three weeks before the 2016 presidential election, after the [[Access Hollywood tape]] scandal, Ferguson stated in an interview that it "was over for Donald Trump", that "Trump had flamed out in all three [[2016 United States presidential debates|Presidential debates]]", that "I don't think there can be any last minute surprise to rescue him [Trump]", and that there was no hope of Trump winning Independent voters and that Trump was "gone as a candidate", adding that "it seems to me clear that she [Hillary Clinton] is going to be the first female [[President of the United States]]. The only question is how bad does his [Trump's] flaming out affect candidates for the Senate, candidates for the House, further down on the ballot."<ref>{{cite web |url=https://finance.yahoo.com/video/niall-ferguson-over-trump-060115408.html |title=Niall Ferguson: It's over for Trump [Video] |access-date=17 January 2017 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161226213541/http://finance.yahoo.com/video/niall-ferguson-over-trump-060115408.html |archive-date=26 December 2016 }}</ref>

In 2018, Ferguson argued that a Clinton presidency would have been more disruptive to the United States, and that Clinton would have been "immediately" [[Federal impeachment in the United States|impeached]] as Trump supporters would have likely believed that the election was rigged. Ferguson stated that he regarded himself "in the middle ground" in a generally polarized public and media opinion on [[First presidency of Donald Trump|Trump's presidency]]. He elaborated that while he found Trump's personality "pretty hard to take", he cited several positive achievements undertaken by his administration, including America's stronger economic performance and noted that he found [[Foreign policy of the first Donald Trump administration|Trump's foreign policy stances]] on [[China]], [[North Korea]], and the [[Middle East]] an improvement over that of the [[Obama administration]]. He further opined that the media was more focused on Trump's behaviour on social media than the "competent job" being done by members of his administration.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.cnbc.com/2018/09/06/economic-historian-niall-ferguson.html|title = The US would be in a bigger mess under Clinton than it is under Trump, historian Niall Ferguson says|website = [[CNBC]]|date = 6 September 2018}}</ref> In 2019, he wrote an op-ed in ''[[The New York Times]]'' arguing that the [[China–United States trade war]] was the beginning of a [[Second Cold War]] between the United States and China, and that despite the risks of the showdown the introduction of an external enemy similar to the [[Soviet Union]] could prove beneficial by reducing [[political polarization in the United States]].<ref>{{cite news |last=Ferguson |first=Niall |date=2 December 2019 |title=Opinion {{!}} The New Cold War? It's With China, and It Has Already Begun |newspaper=[[The New York Times]] |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/02/opinion/china-cold-war.html |access-date=30 January 2022}}</ref>

During the [[2020 United States presidential election]], Ferguson observed that contrary to arguments from Trump's opponents that he only appealed to older White men, statistics showed his support among Black and Latino voters had risen. He opined that [[Joe Biden]] was likely to win the presidency but that the Democratic Party would not see a "[[Blue wave election|blue wave]]" of support as it had tried to turn the election into "a referendum on Trump's handling of [[COVID-19 pandemic in the United States|COVID-19]]" when there "hasn't been anything exceptionally bad about American performance", and that the Democrats had misjudged the mood of voters concerned about law and order following the [[Black Lives Matter]] protests.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/election-colossal-failure-democratic-party-165019097.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAG7ecqM0MxqU9fQ1x24aH4cxCS7md7zLAB6PdGd_ZB8xB7EzyfiU-hDLwYleUY79wnB3iJ1iHFD5r96KCVhdl0-xBix7NaMC51ZCQh0BxmmKOv9aTt4V-qweT1o51dWWccQs-irP90oWWiM_mTkLPVBPFtY_se2ULb5cuJCZwxcQ|title = This election is a "colossal failure" for the Democratic Party: Niall Ferguson| date=4 November 2020 }}</ref> After the election was concluded, Ferguson stated that both Trump and the "[[Left-wing faction in the Democratic Party (United States)|far-left of the Democratic Party]]" had lost.<ref name="auto7">{{cite web|url=https://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2021/01/a-historians-view-of-the-capitol-riot/|title = An historian's view of the Capitol riot|date = 11 January 2021}}</ref> Ferguson condemned the [[2021 United States Capitol attack]] committed by supporters of Trump, arguing on [[Twitter]] that the participants should be prosecuted and Trump's behaviour had cost the Republicans the Senate. He also argued that politicians who refused to condemn the event were unsuited for office.<ref>{{cite tweet |user=nfergus |number=1346937238001569794 |title=Today's scenes in the Capitol are a disgrace. The organizers and perpetrators of this banana republic coup attempt must be prosecuted and punished. Any politician who does not unequivocally condemn what happened should have no future in democratic politics.}}</ref> He argued that [[Trumpism]] was likely to remain a force within American politics and likened it to [[Jacobitism|Jacobite]] Pretenders who sought to revolt in order to restore the [[House of Stuart]] to the British royal throne after the [[Glorious Revolution]].<ref name="auto7" />

In a May 2023 article for ''[[The Spectator]]'', Ferguson hypothesized that a Trump victory in both the [[2024 Republican Party presidential primaries]] and [[2024 United States presidential election]] is a highly plausible outcome despite a "campaign of lawfare" against the former president and that tactical Democratic Party schemes or hopes for Trump to secure the nomination so as to campaign on an anti-Trump platform stand a strong chance of backfiring. Ferguson observed that Biden's [[approval ratings]] were lower at the time of writing than Trump's were in office and highlighted that other leaders, such as Brazil's [[Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva]], Italy's [[Silvio Berlusconi]], and Malaysia's [[Anwar Ibrahim]], were able to engineer political comebacks after being barred from politics. He further stated "the perception that Democratic operatives are using the legal system for political ends will likely help him win votes. It's a much better story than his earlier claim that the [[Attempts to overturn the 2020 United States presidential election|2020 election was stolen]], which now bores almost everyone except Trump himself. It may seem paradoxical that the Democrats are harassing Trump in the courts if they want to run against him. But it makes sense: the prospect of him performing the perp walk attracts media coverage, and media coverage is the free publicity on which Trump has always thrived. Every column inch or minute of airtime his legal battles earn him is an inch or a minute less for his Republican rivals for the nomination."<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/trumps-second-act-he-can-still-win-in-spite-of-everything/ |title=Trump's second act: he can still win, in spite of everything |date=10 May 2023 |access-date=17 July 2023}}</ref>

In September 2023, Ferguson again opined that the Democrats were likely to lose the White House to Trump unless Biden stepped down.<ref name="Retire">Niall Ferguson, "Niall Ferguson: I urged Biden to run for President in 2016, now I implore him to do the smart thing and retire", ''The Daily Mail'' (London), 23 September 2023</ref> He compared Trump's bid to [[Grover Cleveland]] who served two non-consecutive terms, argued that Biden was polling similar numbers to [[Gerald Ford]] and [[George H. W. Bush]] ahead of elections they lost after one term, and that Biden's desire to keep [[Kamala Harris]] as a running mate would harm his campaign due to her even poorer approval ratings.<ref name="Retire" /> He also argued that scandals involving [[Hunter Biden]] would furthermore hinder Biden's image by causing voters to feel less concern about Trump's indictments as both cases would heighten public perception that all politicians are crooks. Ferguson concluded that the only real option for the Democrats to defeat Trump if he won the Republican nomination would be to oust Biden and nominate a younger candidate, and added: "My money is on [[Gavin Newsom|Newsom]]."<ref name="Retire" />

In an interview with ''[[CNBC]]'' in September 2024, Ferguson disputed arguments that Trump represented a threat to [[American democracy]] and argued the Harris campaign was unlikely to persuade the public to vote against Trump by making this claim. Ferguson argued that Trump's "greatest weakness" was his conduct during the 2021 United States Capitol riot and refusal to accept the 2020 election result but noted that the "system contained Trump's impulses successfully in 2020 and 2021", and said that the problem with the Democratic claim that he is a threat to democracy is that for many ordinary voters it sounds overdone and is not as compelling an argument as it was in the past because voters have seen a Trump presidency.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.cnbc.com/2024/09/06/trump-is-no-threat-to-democracy-according-to-historian-niall-ferguson.html|title = Trump is no threat to U.S. democracy, according to historian Niall Ferguson|website = [[CNBC]]|date = 6 September 2024}}</ref>

===Trump's "New World Order"===
In an article from November 2016 in ''[[The Boston Globe]]'', Ferguson advised that Trump should support the efforts of the prime minister [[Theresa May]] to have the United Kingdom leave the European Union as the best way of breaking up the European Union, and sign a [[free trade agreement]] with the United Kingdom once Brexit is complete.<ref name="bostonglobe.com">{{cite news
  | last =  Ferguson 
  | first = Niall
  | title = Donald Trump's new world order
  | newspaper = [[The Boston Globe]]
  | date=22 November 2016| url = https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2016/11/22/donald-trump-new-world-order/twNt5uNGCQVLj814KVzuMO/story.html
  | access-date = 21 April 2017|ref=none}}</ref> To stabilise international relations, Ferguson speculated that Trump could give recognition to [[Russia]] as a [[great power]], and work with Russian president [[Vladimir Putin]] by giving Russia a [[sphere of influence]] in [[Eurasia]].<ref name="bostonglobe.com"/> In the same column, Ferguson advised Trump not to engage in a [[China–United States trade war|trade war with China]], and seek a policy of co-evolution with [[General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party]] [[Xi Jinping]].<ref name="bostonglobe.com"/> Ferguson argued that Trump and Putin could work for the victory of [[Marine Le Pen]] (an advocate of [[Frexit]]) and the [[National Rally|National Front]] in the [[2017 French presidential election]], arguing that Le Pen was the French politician most congenial to the Trump administration.<ref name="bostonglobe.com" /> Ferguson argued that a quintumvirate of Trump, Putin, Xi, May, and Le Pen could then result in a stable "world order" that would reduce the likelihood of international conflict.<ref name="bostonglobe.com" />

===Economic policy===
In its edition of 15 August 2005, ''[[The New Republic]]'' published "The New New Deal", an essay by Ferguson and [[Laurence J. Kotlikoff]], a professor of economics at [[Boston University]]. The two scholars called for the following changes to the American government's fiscal and income security policies:<ref>{{cite web |url=http://people.bu.edu/kotlikof/The%20New%20Republic%208-15-05.pdf |title=Benefits Without Bankruptcy –The New New Deal |access-date=3 June 2018 }}</ref>
* Replacing the [[Income tax in the United States|personal income tax]], [[Corporate income tax in the United States|corporate income tax]], [[Federal Insurance Contributions Act]] tax (FICA), [[Estate tax in the United States|estate tax]], and [[Gift tax in the United States|gift tax]] with a 33% Federal Retail Sales Tax (FRST), plus a monthly rebate, amounting to the amount of FRST that a household with similar demographics would pay if its income were at the [[poverty line]], similar to the [[FairTax]] proposal.
* Replacing the old age benefits paid under [[Social Security (United States)|Social Security]] with a Personal Security System, consisting of private retirement accounts for all citizens, plus a government benefit payable to those whose savings were insufficient to afford a minimum retirement income
* Replacing [[Medicare and Medicaid]] with a [[Universal health care|universal]] Medical Security System that would provide health insurance vouchers to all citizens, the value of which would be determined by one's health
* Cutting federal [[discretionary spending]] by 20%

In February 2010, during the [[Greek government-debt crisis]], Ferguson appeared on the ''[[Glenn Beck Program]]'' predicting that if [[interest rate]]s rose in the United States, it could experience a similar [[sovereign default]] and mass [[civil disorder]] to what was occurring in Greece. He also praised the [[Tea Party movement]]. Later in the year, he called for the [[Federal Reserve]] under chairman [[Ben Bernanke]] to end its second round of [[quantitative easing]].<ref>{{cite book|last=Tooze|first=Adam|title=Crashed : how a decade of financial crises changed the world|date=2018|publisher=Viking Press|isbn=978-0-670-02493-3|location=New York|pages=346–347, 368|oclc=1039188461}}</ref> In November 2012, Ferguson stated in a video with [[CNN]] that the U.S. has enough energy resources to move towards [[energy independence]] and could possibly enter a new economic golden age due to the related socio-economic growth—coming out of the post-world economic recession doldrums.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://home.topnewstoday.org/home/article/3848603/ |title=Top News Today {{pipe}} New age of U.S. prosperity? {{pipe}} Home {{pipe}} cnn.com |publisher=Home.topnewstoday.org |date=23 November 2012 |access-date=15 September 2013 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140224161505/http://home.topnewstoday.org/home/article/3848603/ |archive-date=24 February 2014 }}</ref> Ferguson was an attendee of the 2012 [[Bilderberg Group]] meeting, where he was a speaker on economic policy.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.bilderbergmeetings.org/participants2012.html |title=Bilderberg Meetings: Chantilly, Virginia, USA, 31 May – 3 June 2012 – Final List of Participants|access-date=3 September 2012 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130726214724/http://www.bilderbergmeetings.org/participants2012.html |archive-date=26 July 2013 }}</ref> Ferguson was highly critical of the results of the [[2016 European Union referendum]], warning that "the economic consequences will be dire".<ref name="auto1">{{cite news|url=http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/the-times/brexit-victory-for-older-whiter-voters-but-a-disaster-for-economy/news-story/74a7958984daf54da195346a3cc0a782?nk=2f135beaa8fd6483a39e5397dbfddf5b-1472430314|title=Brexit: victory for older voters but disaster for economy|first=Niall|last= Ferguson|date=27 June 2016|newspaper=[[The Australian]]|ref=none}}</ref> Later, after backing the [[Remain (Brexit)|Remain]] campaign during the referendum, Ferguson changed his mind and came out in support of Britain's exit from the European Union.<ref>{{cite news |title=A remainer repents: Ferguson admits he joined the wrong side|url=https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/a-remainer-repents-ferguson-admits-he-joined-the-wrong-side-v9558tw5g|newspaper=[[The Sunday Times]] |first=Josh |last=Glancy|date=11 December 2016 |url-access=subscription}}</ref>

====Exchanges with Paul Krugman====
In May 2009, Ferguson became involved in a public exchange of views with economist [[Paul Krugman]] arising out of a panel discussion hosted by [[PEN American Center|PEN]]/''[[New York Review]]'' on 30 April 2009, regarding the American economy. Ferguson contended that the Obama administration's policies are simultaneously [[Keynesian]] and [[monetarist]] in an "incoherent" mix, and specifically claimed that the government's issuance of a multitude of new bonds would cause an increase in interest rates.<ref>{{cite web |first=Joe |last=Weisenthal |date=6 May 2013 |title=Niall Ferguson's Horrible Track Record On Economics |url=http://www.businessinsider.com/niall-ferguson-bad-track-record-on-economics-keynes-comments-2013-5 |website=[[Business Insider]] |access-date=29 May 2013}}</ref> Krugman argued that Ferguson's view is "resurrecting 75-year old fallacies" and full of "basic errors". He also stated that Ferguson is a "poseur" who "hasn't bothered to understand the basics, relying on snide comments and surface cleverness to convey the impression of wisdom. It's all style, no comprehension of substance."<ref>{{cite news |url=https://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/05/02/liquidity-preference-loanable-funds-and-niall-ferguson-wonkish/ |title=Liquidity preference, loanable funds, and Niall Ferguson (wonkish) |newspaper=[[The New York Times]] |date=2 May 2009 |first=Paul|last= Krugman}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |first=Paul |last=Krugman|author-link=Paul Krugman|url=https://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/05/22/gratuitous-ignorance/ |title=Gratuitous ignorance |newspaper=[[The New York Times]] |date=22 May 2009|ref=none}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |first=Paul |last=Krugman|author-link=Paul Krugman|url=https://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/08/17/black-cats/ |title=Black cats |newspaper=[[The New York Times]] |date=17 August 2009|ref=none}}</ref>

In 2012, Jonathan Portes, the director of the [[National Institute of Economic and Social Research]], said that subsequent events had shown Ferguson to be wrong: "As we all know, since then both the US and UK have had deficits running at historically extremely high levels, and long-term interest rates at historic lows: as Krugman has repeatedly pointed out, the ([[IS/LM model|IS-LM]]) textbook has been spot on."<ref>{{cite web |last=Portes |first=Jonathan |title=Macroeconomics: what is it good for? [a response to Diane Coyle] |date=25 June 2012 |url=http://www.niesr.ac.uk/blog/macroeconomics-what-it-good-response-diane-coyle#.WC4tFckxCHm |access-date=26 June 2012}}</ref> After Ferguson wrote a cover story for ''[[Newsweek]]'' arguing that [[Mitt Romney]] should be elected in the [[2012 United States presidential election]], Krugman wrote that there were multiple errors and misrepresentations in the story, concluding: "We're not talking about ideology or even economic analysis here—just a plain misrepresentation of the facts, with an august publication letting itself be used to misinform readers. [''The New York Times''] would require an abject correction if something like that slipped through. Will ''Newsweek''?"<ref>{{cite news  |title=Paul Krugman Bashes Niall Ferguson's ''Newsweek'' Cover Story As "Unethical" |url=https://www.huffpost.com/entry/paul-krugman-niall-ferguson-newsweek_n_1810136 |last=Kavoussi |first=Bonnie |work=[[HuffPost]] |date=20 August 2012}}</ref>

In an online rebuttal titled "Paul Krugman Is Wrong", Ferguson defended his prior cover story, insisting that it was Krugman who had been wrong on the facts.<ref>{{cite news |last=Ferguson |first=Niall |title=Ferguson's Newsweek Cover Rebuttal: Paul Krugman Is Wrong |url=http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/08/20/newsweek-cover-rebuttal-paul-krugman-is-wrong.html |work=[[The Daily Beast]] |date=20 August 2012 |access-date=28 August 2012}}</ref> Matthew O'Brien countered that Ferguson was still distorting the meaning of the [[Congressional Budget Office]] report being discussed, and that the entire piece could be read as an effort to deceive.<ref>{{cite web |last=O'Brien |first=Matthew |title=The Age of Niallism: Ferguson and the Post-Fact World |url=https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/08/the-age-of-niallism-ferguson-and-the-post-fact-world/261395/ |work=[[The Atlantic]] |date=24 August 2012 |access-date=28 August 2012}}</ref> In 2013, Ferguson, naming [[Dean Baker]], [[Josh Barro]], [[Brad DeLong]], [[Matthew O'Brien]], Noah Smith, [[Matthew Yglesias]], and [[Justin Wolfers]], attacked "Krugman and his acolytes" in a three-part essay explaining his dislike of Krugman.<ref>Niall Ferguson, [https://www.huffpost.com/entry/paul-krugman-euro_b_4060733 Krugtron the Invincible, Part 1], [https://www.huffpost.com/entry/paul-krugman-housing-crisis_b_4067580 Krugtron the Invincible, Part 2], [https://www.huffpost.com/entry/krugtron-the-invincible-p_b_4073956 Krugtron the Invincible, Part 3]</ref> The essay title, "Krugtron the Invincible", originally comes from a post by Smith.<ref>Noah Smith, [http://noahpinionblog.blogspot.kr/2013/04/krugtron-invincible.html KrugTron the Invincible]</ref>

====Remarks on Keynes' sexual orientation====
At a May 2013 investment conference in [[Carlsbad, California]], Ferguson was asked about his views on economist [[John Maynard Keynes]]' quotation that "[[in the long run we are all dead]]". Ferguson stated that Keynes was indifferent to the future because he was gay and did not have children.<ref name=Harris>{{cite news|first=Paul |last=Harris |date=4 May 2013|url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/may/04/niall-ferguson-apologises-gay-keynes |title=Niall Ferguson apologises for remarks about 'gay and childless' Keynes|newspaper=[[The Guardian]]|access-date= 7 May 2013}}</ref> The remarks were widely criticised for being offensive, factually inaccurate, and a distortion of Keynes' ideas.<ref name=Blodget>{{cite web |last=Blodget |first=Henry |author-link=Henry Blodget |title=Harvard's Niall Ferguson Blamed Keynes' Economic Philosophy On His Being Childless And Gay |website=[[Business Insider]] |url=http://www.businessinsider.com/harvard-niall-ferguson-remarks-about-keynes-2013-5}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last=Kostigen |first=Tom |title=Harvard Professor Trashes Keynes For Homosexuality |url=http://www.fa-mag.com/news/harvard-professor-gay-bashes-keynes-14173.html}}</ref> Ferguson posted an apology for these statements shortly after reports of his words were widely disseminated, saying his comments were "as stupid as they were insensitive".<ref name="Harris" /><ref>Niall Ferguson [http://www.niallferguson.com/blog/an-unqualified-apology "An Unqualified Apology"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130610010743/http://www.niallferguson.com/blog/an-unqualified-apology |date=10 June 2013 }}, niallferguson.com, 05/04/2013</ref> In the apology, Ferguson stated: "My disagreements with Keynes's economic philosophy have never had anything to do with his [[sexual orientation]]. It is simply false to suggest, as I did, that his approach to economic policy was inspired by any aspect of his personal life."<ref>{{cite web |first=Niall |last=Ferguson |date=5 May 2013 |url=http://www.niallferguson.com/blog/an-unqualified-apology |title=An Unqualified Apology |publisher=Homesite |access-date=7 May 2013 |archive-date=10 June 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130610010743/http://www.niallferguson.com/blog/an-unqualified-apology |url-status=dead }}</ref>

====Stanford Cardinal Conversations====
In spring 2018, Ferguson was involved with [[College Republicans|College Republican]] leaders at Stanford to oppose a left-leaning student take over of the Cardinal Conversations initiative. In leaked emails, he was quoted as asking for opposition research on the student involved. He later apologized and resigned from the said initiative when emails were leaked revealing his involvement in the events. In a statement to ''[[The Stanford Daily]]'', Ferguson wrote: "I very much regret the publication of these emails. I also regret having written them."<ref name="Stanforddaily"/>

===Cryptocurrency===
Ferguson was an early skeptic of [[cryptocurrencies]], famously dismissing his teenage son's recommendation to buy [[Bitcoin]] in 2014. By 2017, he had changed his mind on Bitcoin's utility, saying it had established itself as a form of "digital gold: a store of value for wealthy investors, especially those located in countries with weak [[rule of law]] and high [[political risk]]".<ref>{{cite web |last1=Ferguson |first1=Niall |title=Bitcoin may go pop, but its revolution will go on {{!}} Niall Ferguson {{!}} Journalism |url=http://www.niallferguson.com/journalism/finance-economics/bitcoin-may-go-pop-but-its-revolution-will-go-on |website=Niall Ferguson |access-date=8 March 2019 |archive-date=19 March 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190319205412/http://www.niallferguson.com/journalism/finance-economics/bitcoin-may-go-pop-but-its-revolution-will-go-on |url-status=dead|ref=none}}</ref> In February 2019, Ferguson became an advisor for digital asset protocol firm Ampleforth Protocol, saying he was attracted by the firm's plan to "reinvent money in a way that protects individual freedom and to create a payments system that treats everyone equally".<ref>{{cite news |last1=Kelly |first1=Jemima |title=Niall Ferguson joins blockchain project Ampleforth |url=https://www.ft.com/content/e5f6ba4a-ccff-30ff-bdfa-ba3283076f9a/ |newspaper=Financial Times |date=8 February 2019 |access-date=8 March 2019}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=About Us |url=https://www.ampleforth.org/about/ |website=ampleforth.org |access-date=25 April 2020 |archive-date=12 April 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200412060322/https://www.ampleforth.org/about/ |url-status=dead }}</ref> In March 2019, Ferguson spoke at an ''[[Australian Financial Review]]'' Business Summit, where he admitted to being "wrong to think there was no ... use for a form of currency based on [[blockchain|blockchain technology]]... I don't think this will turn out to be a complete delusion."<ref>{{cite news|last=Thomson |first=James |title='I was very wrong': Niall Ferguson on crypto |url=https://www.afr.com/brand/business-summit/i-was-very-wrong-niall-ferguson-on-cypto-20190306-h1c23w |newspaper=[[Australian Financial Review]]|access-date=8 March 2019 |date=6 March 2019}}</ref>

===Scottish nationalism and the British Union===
Ferguson has stated that he identified as a [[Scottish nationalist]] as a teenager but moderated his views after moving to England to study history. He has argued that Scottish nationalism is sometimes fueled by a distorted view that Scots have always been oppressed by the English and is misconceived by people from outside of the United Kingdom as the choice between being Scottish or English. Ferguson states that in contrast to the subjugations of Wales and Ireland, Scotland was united as an "equal" country to England during the [[Acts of Union 1707|Act of Union of 1707]], and cites events such as [[King James VI of Scotland]] inheriting the English crown, the failed [[Darien scheme]] to colonize Panama, which prompted Scottish political elites to support the Union and that Scots were an integral part of the [[East India Company]] to question the narrative that Scotland was oppressed. Ferguson has also argued (citing [[Walter Scott]]'s novel ''[[Waverley (novel)|Waverley]]'') that Scotland after the Jacobite rebellion remained a land divided by warring clans and religious factions, and that the Union helped to quell some of the conflicts.<ref name="auto4">{{cite news|url=https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-04-18/niall-ferguson-to-save-the-u-k-give-scotland-the-canada-treatment|title=To Save the U.K. Give Scottish Nationalists the Canada Treatment|newspaper=[[Bloomberg.com]]|date=18 April 2021|access-date=19 April 2021}}</ref><ref name="auto">{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/15/opinion/scots-must-vote-nae.html|title=Opinion {{pipe}} Scots Must Vote Nae|first=Niall|last=Ferguson|date=14 September 2014|newspaper=[[The New York Times]]|access-date=19 April 2021}}</ref>

During the [[2014 Scottish independence referendum]], Ferguson supported Scotland remaining within the United Kingdom, citing potential economic consequences of [[Scottish independence]] but argued that the opposition campaign needed to focus on Scotland's history of cosmopolitanism, as well as economic points to save the Union.<ref name="auto"/> In 2021, ahead of the [[2021 Scottish Parliament election]], Ferguson argued that the [[Labour Party (UK)|Labour Party]] administration under [[Tony Blair]] had made a mistake in believing devolution would stem Scottish nationalism but instead enabled the [[Scottish National Party]] (SNP) to assume regional power and criticised the SNP government of [[Nicola Sturgeon]] for its management of the [[Economy of Scotland|Scottish economy]], [[Education in Scotland|education]] and [[freedom of speech]]. Ferguson furthermore states that the best way for the British government to thwart independence and the SNP's separationist demands was not by "unthinkingly accepting the SNP's argument that it has a moral right to a referendum on secession every time it wins a parliamentary election" and allowing a slim majority vote in favour to decide the outcome but instead by following the example of Canadian prime minister [[Jean Chretien]] and minister [[Stephane Dion]]'s who handled the [[Parti Quebecois]]'s calls for [[Quebec nationalism|Quebec secessionism]] by taking the matter to the [[Canadian Supreme Court]] and introducing the [[Clarity Act]] rather than letting it solely be up to "a slim majority of the voters of [[Quebec]] if Canada broke up".<ref name="auto4"/>

===European Union===
In 2011, Ferguson predicted that [[Grexit]] (the notion of Greece leaving the [[euro]] currency) was unlikely to happen but that Britain would leave the [[European Union]] (EU) in the near future as it would be easier for Britain to leave the EU owing to the fact it was not part of the [[eurozone]] and that returning to a national currency would be harder for countries who had signed up to a single currency.<ref name="auto2">{{cite web|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxFe7-kVv4g |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/youtube/20211222/zxFe7-kVv4g |archive-date=22 December 2021 |url-status=live|title=Niall Ferguson On Brexit And 2020|date=26 March 2019 |via=YouTube|access-date=19 April 2021}}{{cbignore}}</ref> In 2012, he described the Eurozone as a "disaster waiting to happen".<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.thetimes.com/comment/register/article/one-nation-under-germany-ll9hkzcbtlr|title=One nation (under Germany)|first=Ben|last=Laurance|newspaper=[[The Times]]|access-date=19 April 2021}}</ref>

During the [[2016 United Kingdom European Union membership referendum]], Ferguson was initially critical of the idea of Britain leaving the EU despite his criticisms of the latter, warning that "the economic consequences will be dire", and endorsed a Remain vote.<ref name="auto1"/> After backing the Remain campaign ([[Britain Stronger in Europe]]), Ferguson changed his stance and came out in support of [[Brexit]], admitting that his support to stay in had been motivated in part on a personal level by not wanting the government of [[David Cameron]] (with whom he had a friendship) to collapse and in turn risk [[Jeremy Corbyn]] becoming prime minister. Ferguson elaborated that while Brexit would still have some economic consequences, the EU had been a "disaster" on its monetary, immigration, national security, and radical Islam policies. He also added that "one has to recognise that the European elite's performances over the last decade entirely justified the revolt of provincial England".<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_r8eDIIo3fw|title=Niall Ferguson, 'I was wrong on Brexit'|via=YouTube|access-date=19 April 2021}}{{cbignore}}{{Dead YouTube link|date=February 2022}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.niallferguson.com/journalism/politics/sorry-i-was-wrong-to-fight-brexit-to-keep-my-friends-in-no-10-and-no-11|title=Sorry, I was wrong to fight Brexit to keep my friends in No 10 and No 11 {{pipe}} Niall Ferguson {{pipe}} Journalism|first=Niall|last=Ferguson|website=Niall Ferguson|access-date=19 April 2021|archive-date=30 October 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201030231712/http://www.niallferguson.com/journalism/politics/sorry-i-was-wrong-to-fight-brexit-to-keep-my-friends-in-no-10-and-no-11|url-status=dead|ref=none}}</ref>

In 2020, Ferguson predicted that the EU was destined to become "moribund" and was at risk of collapse in the near future and that the single currency had only benefited [[Northern Europe]] and Germany in particular while causing economic havoc in [[Southern Europe]]. He also argued the "real disintegration of Europe" will happen over the [[EU's migration policies]] that he says have both exacerbated and failed to provide solutions to [[illegal immigration]] to the European continent from [[North Africa]] and the [[Middle East]]. Ferguson stated that high levels of illegal immigration from [[Muslim-majority nations]] would in turn further the rise of [[populist]] and [[Eurosceptic]] movements committed to rolling back or leaving the EU. Ferguson also predicted that in a decade's time Britain would question why there had been fuss, outcry, or debates over the manner of how to leave the EU over Brexit because "we'll have left something that was essentially disintegrating", and that "it would be a little bit like getting a divorce and then your ex drops dead, and you spent all that money on the divorce courts, if only you'd known how sick the ex was. The European Union is sick, and people don't really want to admit that, least of all in Brussels."<ref name="auto2"/> When commenting on the ethnic diversity of the candidates for the [[July–September 2022 Conservative Party leadership election]], Ferguson disputed that racism or nostalgia for the British Empire had played a significant role in the vote for Brexit.<ref name="auto6" />

=== COVID-19 pandemic ===
Ferguson, drawing on his research of the [[1881–1896 cholera pandemic]] and the [[Spanish flu]], began predicting that the [[COVID-19 pandemic]] would have a severe impact on the world in January 2020. He later criticized both the [[British government response to the COVID-19 pandemic|British]] and [[U.S. federal government response to the COVID-19 pandemic|U.S. federal government responses to the COVID-19 pandemic]] as inadequate, calling them "both, in their different ways, intelligible only as colossal failures by governments to make adequate preparations for a disaster they always knew to be a likely contingency".<ref name=":0">{{cite book|last=Ferguson|first=Niall|url=|title=Doom: The Politics of Catastrophe|date=2021|publisher=[[Penguin Press]]|isbn=978-0-593-29737-7|location=New York|pages=7|oclc=1197724463|ref=none}}</ref> He also dismissed the idea that [[right-wing populism]] had been responsible for failure of government responses to the pandemic, accusing [[Liberalism|liberal]] politicians such as the then Belgian prime minister [[Sophie Wilmès]] and United States president [[Joe Biden]] of making similar mistakes to [[Donald Trump]] and [[Boris Johnson]].<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":1">{{cite web|last=Fridman|first=Lex|date=8 November 2021|title=#239 – Niall Ferguson: History of Money, Power, War, and Truth {{!}} Lex Fridman Podcast|url=https://lexfridman.com/niall-ferguson/|access-date=28 January 2022|website=Lex Fridman}}</ref> He reflected in a 2021 podcast interview with [[Lex Fridman]] that many of the failures in the United States had been systemic rather than the personal fault of Trump, and that Trump was unfairly blamed because of the [[Communication of the Trump administration during the COVID-19 pandemic|Trump administration's messaging]]. He alleged that [[Barack Obama]]'s handling of the [[Opioid epidemic in the United States|U.S. opioid epidemic]] had been similarly costly but more obscure. Ferguson also praised [[Operation Warp Speed]], and argued that part of the reason for the failure of the U.S. government to effectively respond to the pandemic was the absence of a similar program for [[COVID-19 testing in the United States|COVID-19 testing]].<ref name=":1" />

=== 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine ===
On 22 March 2022, around a month after the [[Russian invasion of Ukraine]], Ferguson wrote: "I conclude that the U.S. intends to keep this war going. The administration will continue to supply the Ukrainians with anti-aircraft Stingers, antitank Javelins and explosive Switchblade drones. ... It helps explain, among other things, the lack of any diplomatic effort by the U.S. to secure a cease-fire. ... Prolonging the war runs the risk not just of leaving tens of thousands of Ukrainians dead and millions homeless, but also of handing Putin something that he can plausibly present at home as victory."<ref name=Bloomberg2022>{{cite news |last1=Ferguson |first1=Niall |title=Putin Misunderstands History. So, Unfortunately, Does the U.S. |url=https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2022-03-22/niall-ferguson-putin-and-biden-misunderstand-history-in-ukraine-war?sref=xzGl1Vcx |work=Bloomberg |date=22 March 2022}}</ref> He also criticized the [[2022 Moscow rally]] for justifying the invasion and described it as "fascistic".<ref name=Bloomberg2022 />

=== Israel–Palestinian conflict ===
In wake of the [[2023 Hamas-led attack on Israel]], Ferguson said, "I think it is clear that Israel can no longer co-exist with [[Hamas]] in control of [[Gaza Strip|Gaza]]. If anybody doubted that, then surely those doubts were dispelled on October the 7th with the most hideous scenes of violence against Jews since [[the Holocaust]]". He added that "The issue is can Hamas be destroyed, as it should be, at an acceptable cost".<ref>{{cite news |last= |title=Hamas 'intending nothing less than a second Holocaust': Niall Ferguson |date=6 December 2023 |url=https://www.skynews.com.au/opinion/piers-morgan/hamas-intending-nothing-less-than-a-second-holocaust-niall-ferguson/video/248ab4e66a7ed0b5ac3180537e065024 |access-date=26 January 2024 }}</ref> Ferguson has also sharply criticized the accusations of genocide in Gaza, describing such claims as "utterly divorced from strategic reality."<ref name=":5">{{Cite web |last=Ferguson |first=Niall |date=2025-08-01 |title=A genocide is under way — but it’s not in Gaza |url=https://www.thetimes.com/comment/columnists/article/a-genocide-is-under-way-but-its-not-in-gaza-pkgl7vh8h |access-date=2025-08-04 |website=The Times |language=en}}</ref>

Ferguson rejects plans to recognize a [[Palestinian state]] insisting that "nothing remotely resembling a Palestinian state exists today. Nor is one likely to exist at any point in the foreseeable future."<ref name=":5" /> He argues that the [[Palestinian Authority]] is widely despised and lacks real authority, while Hamas continues to command significant support, even in the West Bank, and remains fundamentally committed to violence.<ref name=":5" /> In Ferguson's view, the October 7 attacks should be seen as a decisive moral and political failure: "an event disqualifying the Palestinians from self-government, not entitling them to it."<ref name=":5" /> He adds that the enduring support for Hamas among Palestinians, and claims due to supposed widespread [[denial of the October 7 attacks]], erodes any claim to statehood.<ref name=":5" />

==Personal life==
<!--This material is all sourced. please do not remove without explaining on talk page or providing a more recent source that contradicts the sources used here-->
Ferguson met journalist [[Sue Douglas]] in 1987, when she was his editor at ''[[The Sunday Times]]''. They married in 1994, and went on to have three children.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.thetimes.com/world/us-world/article/professor-paul-krugman-at-war-with-niall-ferguson-over-inflation-dldb3kflfbq |title=Professor Paul Krugman at war with Niall Ferguson over inflation |last=Lynn |first=Matthew|author-link=Matthew Lynn|date=23 August 2009 |work=[[The Times]] |url-access=subscription}}</ref> In February 2010, Ferguson separated from Douglas and thereafter started dating [[Ayaan Hirsi Ali]].<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/news/romance-british-historian-niall-ferguson-1892263.html |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220618/https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/news/romance-british-historian-niall-ferguson-1892263.html |archive-date=18 June 2022 |url-access=subscription |url-status=live |title=Romance for British historian Niall Ferguson | first1=Cahal | last1=Milmo | first2=Luke | last2=Blackall | work=[[The Independent]] |date=8 February 2010 }}</ref><ref>{{cite news | url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/corrections/niall-ferguson-and-ayaan-hirsi-ali-1909439.html |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220618/https://www.independent.co.uk/news/corrections/niall-ferguson-and-ayaan-hirsi-ali-1909439.html |archive-date=18 June 2022 |url-access=subscription |url-status=live |title=Niall Ferguson and Ayaan Hirsi Ali |work=[[The Independent]] |date=25 February 2010}}</ref> Ferguson and Douglas divorced in 2011. Ferguson married Hirsi Ali on 10 September 2011;<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/celebritynews/8770965/Henry-Kissinger-watches-historian-Niall-Ferguson-marry-Ayaan-Hirsi-Ali-under-a-fatwa.html |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220112/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/celebritynews/8770965/Henry-Kissinger-watches-historian-Niall-Ferguson-marry-Ayaan-Hirsi-Ali-under-a-fatwa.html |archive-date=12 January 2022 |url-access=subscription |url-status=live |title=Henry Kissinger watches historian Niall Ferguson marry Ayaan Hirsi Ali under a fatwa |last=Eden |first=Richard |date=18 December 2011 |work=The Telegraph |access-date=27 September 2011}}{{cbignore}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |last=Murray |first=Douglas |author-link=Douglas Murray (author) |date=October 2011 |title=Right Wedding |url=http://www.standpointmag.co.uk/node/4135/full |newspaper=[[Standpoint (magazine)|Standpoint]] |access-date=7 May 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180507221743/http://www.standpointmag.co.uk/node/4135/full |archive-date=7 May 2018 |url-status=dead }}</ref> she gave birth to their son three months later.<ref>{{cite magazine|url=http://www.elsevier.nl/web/Stijl/Society/326446/Ayaan-Hirsi-Ali-42-bevalt-van-een-zoon.htm |title=Ayaan Hirsi Ali (42) bevalt van een zoon |magazine=[[Elsevier Weekblad]]|date=30 December 2011 |first=Jessica |last=Numann |access-date=30 December 2011}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |url=http://www.dutchnews.nl/news/archives/2011/12/ayaan_hirsi_ali_gives_birth_to.php |title=Ayaan Hirsi Ali gives birth to baby boy |work=DutchNews.nl |date=30 December 2011 |access-date=9 June 2012}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |url=http://www.volkskrant.nl/vk/nl/2686/Binnenland/article/detail/3099200/2011/12/30/Ayaan-Hirsi-Ali-is-bevallen-van-zoon-Thomas.dhtml |title=Ayaan Hirsi Ali is bevallen van zoon Thomas |work=Volkskrant |date=30 December 2011 |access-date=9 June 2012}}</ref> Upset about the media coverage of his relationship with Hirsi Ali, which implied that he had begun dating her before his first marriage had unraveled, Ferguson stated: "I don't care about the sex lives of celebrities, so I was a little unprepared for having my private life all over the country."<ref name="The Guardian">{{cite news |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/apr/11/niall-ferguson-political-debate-england-america |title= 'The left love being provoked by me ... they think I'm a reactionary imperialist scumbag' |newspaper=[[The Guardian]]|date=11 April 2011}}</ref>

Ferguson dedicated his book ''Civilization'' to "Ayaan". In an interview with ''[[The Guardian]]'', Ferguson spoke about his love for Ali who, he writes in the preface, "understands better than anyone I know what Western civilisation really means&nbsp;– and what it still has to offer the world".<ref name="guardian" /> The couple have two sons.<ref>{{cite web |date=17 May 2021 |title=Ayaan Hirsi Ali on Immigration Reform and Assimilation in Europe |url=https://lithub.com/ayaan-hirsi-ali-on-immigration-reform-and-assimilation-in-europe/ |access-date=12 June 2024 |website=Literary Hub }}</ref><ref>{{cite news |last=Jensen |first=Nicholas |date=18 June 2021 |title=Administrative state every bit as harmful as Covid, says historian Niall Ferguson |url=https://www.theaustralian.com.au/arts/books/administrative-state-every-bit-as-harmful-as-covid-says-historian-niall-ferguson/news-story/ffb04e2d9ab47c2fc6589e926e5fbb8f}}</ref> In a 2024 interview with [[Greg Sheridan]], Ferguson said that he, Hirsi Ali, and their two sons were baptised in September 2023.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Sheridan |first=Greg|author-link=Greg Sheridan|date=2024-12-21|title=How historian Niall Ferguson became a religious believer (print: Niall Ferguson's journey from atheist to Christian)|url=https://www.theaustralian.com.au/inquirer/how-historian-niall-ferguson-became-a-religious-believer/news-story/584b057b0dde22570a248ea3b5d7f433|url-access=subscription|access-date=2024-12-21|newspaper=[[The Weekend Australian]]|page=31}}</ref> 

Ferguson's self-confessed [[workaholism]] has placed strains on his personal relations in the past. In 2011, Ferguson commented:

<blockquote>[F]rom 2002, the combination of making TV programmes and teaching at Harvard took me away from my children too much. You don't get those years back. You have to ask yourself: "Was it a smart decision to do those things?" I think the success I have enjoyed since then has been bought at a significant price. In hindsight, there would have been a bunch of things that I would have said no to.<ref name="Duncan" /></blockquote>

Ferguson was the inspiration for [[Alan Bennett]]'s play ''[[The History Boys]]'' (2004), particularly the character of Irwin, a history teacher who urges his pupils to find a counterintuitive angle, and who then goes on to become a television historian.<ref name="Smith" /> Irwin, writes David Smith of ''The Observer'', gives the impression that "an entire career can be built on the trick of contrariness".<ref name="Smith" />

In 2018, Ferguson became [[Naturalization Act of 1790|naturalised]] as a United States citizen.<ref>{{cite news |last=Ferguson |first=Niall |date=15 July 2018 |title=Britain Trumped: I'm an American citizen at last |url=https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/britain-trumped-i-m-an-american-citizen-at-last-2w7gsl93h |newspaper=[[The Times]]|access-date=1 July 2019 |url-access=subscription|ref=none}}</ref> He was elected an [[Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh]] (HonFRSE) in the disciplines of language, literature and history in 2020.<ref>[https://rse.org.uk/fellowship/fellow/professor-niall-ferguson-7995/ "Current Fellows: Professor Niall Ferguson HonFRSE"], [[Royal Society of Edinburgh]]</ref> On 14 June 2024, Ferguson was awarded a [[Knight Bachelor|knighthood]] in the birthday honours list of [[Charles III|King Charles III]].<ref>{{cite news |date=14 June 2024 |title=Birthday Honours List 2024 |url=https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-kings-birthday-honours-list-2024/birthday-honours-list-2024-high-awards-html#knights-bachelor |access-date=4 July 2019}}</ref>

==Selected bibliography==
{{main|Niall Ferguson bibliography}}
*{{cite book |last=Ferguson |first=Niall |title=Paper and Iron: Hamburg Business and German Politics in the Era of Inflation, 1897–1927 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |location=Cambridge |year=1995 |isbn=0-521-47016-1 |ref=none}}
*{{cite book |last=Ferguson |first=Niall |author-mask=1 |title=The House of Rothschild: The World's Banker, 1849–1999 |publisher=[[Viking Press]] |location=New York |year=1999 |isbn=0-670-88794-3 |url=https://archive.org/details/houseofrothschi000ferg |ref=none}}
** {{cite book |last=Ferguson|first= Niall|author-mask= 1 |title=The World's Banker: The History of the House of Rothschild |publisher=[[Weidenfeld & Nicolson]] |location=London |year=1998 |isbn=0-297-81539-3|ref=none}}
** {{cite book |last=Ferguson|first= Niall|author-mask= 1 |title=The House of Rothschild |publisher= Viking |location= New York |year=1998 |isbn=0-670-85768-8 |url=https://archive.org/details/houseofrothschil00ferg|ref=none}}
* {{cite book |last=Ferguson|first= Niall|author-mask= 1 |title=The Pity of War |publisher=Basic Books |location= New York |year=1999 |orig-year=1998 |isbn=0-465-05711-X |oclc=41124439 |url=https://archive.org/details/pityofwarexplain00ferg}}
* {{cite book |last=Ferguson|first= Niall|author-mask= 1 |title=Virtual History: Alternatives and Counterfactuals |publisher=Basic Books |location=New York |year=1999 |orig-year=1997 |isbn=0-465-02322-3|ref=none}}
*{{cite book |last=Ferguson|first= Niall|author-mask= 1 |title=The Cash Nexus: Money and Power in the Modern World, 1700–2000 |publisher=Allen Lane |location=London |year=2001 |isbn=0-7139-9465-7 |oclc=46459770|ref=none}}
*{{cite book |last=Ferguson|first= Niall|author-mask= 1 |title=Empire: How Britain Made the Modern World |publisher= [[Allen Lane (imprint)|Allen Lane]] |location=London |year=2003 |isbn=0-7139-9615-3|ref=none}}
**{{cite book |last=Ferguson|first=Niall |author-mask= 1 |title= Empire: The Rise and Demise of the British World Order and the Lessons for Global Power |publisher=[[Basic Books]] |location=New York |year=2003 |isbn=0-465-02328-2|ref=none}} American edition.
*{{cite book |last=Ferguson|first= Niall|author-mask= 1 |title=Colossus: The Rise and Fall of the American Empire |publisher=[[Gardners Books]] |year=2004 |isbn=0-7139-9770-2|ref=none}}
*{{cite book |last=Ferguson|first= Niall|author-mask= 1 |title=1914 |url=https://archive.org/details/1914whyworldwent00ferg |url-access=registration |series=[[Pocket Penguins]] 70s S |publisher= Penguin Books |location= London, England |year=2005 |isbn=0-14-102220-5|ref=none}}
*{{cite book |last=Ferguson|first= Niall|author-mask= 1 |title=The War of the World: History's Age of Hatred |publisher=Allen Lane |location=London |year=2006 |isbn=0-7139-9708-7|ref=none}} American ed. has the title: ''The War of the World: Twentieth-century Conflict and the Descent of the West''. {{OCLC|70839824}} (also a Channel 4 series)<ref name= "ch4 wotw">{{cite web|url=http://www.channel4.com/history/microsites/H/history/t-z/warworld.html |title=The War of the World |access-date=14 July 2008 |publisher=Channel 4 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080427054130/http://www.channel4.com/history/microsites/H/history/t-z/warworld.html |archive-date= 27 April 2008}}</ref>
*{{cite book |last=Ferguson|first= Niall|author-mask= 1 |title= [[The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World]] |publisher=Allen Lane |location=London |year=2008 |isbn=978-1-84614-106-5|ref=none}}
*{{cite book |last=Ferguson|first=Niall|author-mask= 1 |title= High Financier: The Lives and Times of Siegmund Warburg |publisher=Penguin |location=New York |year=2010 |isbn=978-1-59420-246-9|ref=none}}
*{{cite book |last=Ferguson|first= Niall|author-mask= 1 |title=Civilization: The West and the Rest |publisher=The Penguin Press HC |year=2011 |isbn=978-1-59420-305-3 |url=https://archive.org/details/civilizationwest00ferg|ref=none}}
*{{cite book |last=Ferguson|first= Niall|author-mask= 1 |title=[[The Great Degeneration: How Institutions Decay and Economies Die|The Great Degeneration]] |publisher=[[Penguin Books]] |year=2013|ref=none}}
*{{cite book |last=Ferguson|first= Niall|author-mask= 1 |title=Kissinger: 1923–1968: The Idealist |publisher=[[Penguin Group|Penguin Press]] |location=New York |year=2015 |isbn=978-1-59420-653-5|ref=none}}
*{{cite book |last=Ferguson|first= Niall|author-mask= 1 |title=[[The Square and the Tower|The Square and the Tower: Networks, Hierarchies and the Struggle for Global Power]] |publisher=Allen Lane |location=London |year=2017 |isbn= 978-024129-046-0|ref=none}}
*{{cite book |last=Ferguson|first= Niall|author-mask= 1 |title= [[Doom (book)|Doom: The Politics of Catastrophe]] |date= 2021 |publisher=Allen Lane|location=London |isbn=978-0-24148844-7|ref=none}}

==See also==
* [[Anglosphere]]

==References==

===Notes===
{{reflist}}

===Further reading===
* {{cite journal |last=Snowman |first=Daniel |author-link=Daniel Snowman |date=October 2004 |title=Niall Ferguson |journal=[[History Today]] |volume=54 |issue=10 |pages=37–39 |url=http://www.historytoday.com/MainArticle.aspx?m=30556&amid=30210444 |access-date=14 July 2008 |archive-date=3 March 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100303092832/http://www.historytoday.com/MainArticle.aspx?m=30556&amid=30210444 |url-status=dead|ref=none}}
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20100301230141/http://www.thersa.org/events/vision/vision-videos/niall-ferguson "The Ascent of Money"], [[Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce]]
* [https://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/specials/1246_the_forum/page20.shtml "Audio: Niall Ferguson in conversation"], ''[[The Forum (BBC World Service)|The Forum]]'', [[BBC World Service]]
* [[Hans Koning]], [http://www.hanskoning.net/misc/article_nation_081999.html "Still Not Over Over There?"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130905222343/http://www.hanskoning.net/misc/article_nation_081999.html |date=5 September 2013 }}, ''[[The Nation]]'', August 1999&nbsp;– Review of ''The Pity of War''
* Martin Rubin, [https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748704895204575321072553012144?mod=WSJ_LifeStyle_Lifestyle_6 "A Banker to the Rescue"], WSJ.com, 26 June 2010
* [[Liaquat Ahamed]], [https://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/01/books/review/Ahamed-t.html?ref=books "Yesterday's Banker"], NYTimes.com, 30 July 2010
* {{usurped|1=[https://web.archive.org/web/20110522131434/http://www.oxonianreview.org/wp/the-sun-sets-in-the-west/ "The Sun Sets in the West"]}}, ''[[The Oxonian Review]]'', 4 April 2011&nbsp;– Review of ''Civilization''
* {{usurped|1=[https://web.archive.org/web/20110506010810/http://www.oxonianreview.org/wp/an-interview-with-niall-ferguson/ "An Interview with Niall Ferguson"]}}, ''The Oxonian Review'', 9 April 2011
* [http://www.salon.com/2011/05/24/lind_niall_fergsuon/ "Niall Ferguson and the brain-dead American right"], 24 May 2011

==External links==
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