Today, the average Korean works a thousand hours more a year than the average German. A thousand. ... That is the end of the Great Divergence.
Niall FergusonSo much of liberalism in its classical sense is taken for granted in the west today and even disrespected. We take freedom for granted, and because of this we don't understand how incredibly vulnerable it is.
Niall FergusonWhy did the Germans and Japanese keep fighting after 1943 when every rational hope of victory had disappeared?
Niall FergusonBetween 1980 and 2000 the number of patents registered in Israel was 7652 compared with 367 for all the Arab countries combined.
Niall FergusonIn the old days it would have been a relatively simple matter to have checked Hitler's territorial ambitions. All you'd have needed would have been the 1914 combination of Britain, France and Russia. Indeed, if such an alliance had acted decisively to defend Czechoslovakia in 1938, Hitler might even have been overthrown by his own military. But it was not to be.
Niall Ferguson