Oral history is a recipe for complete misrepresentation because almost no one tells the truth, even when they intend to.
Niall FergusonItโs our generation that is witnessing the end of Western predominance. The average American used to be more than 20 times richer than the average Chinese. Now itโs just five times, and soon it will be 2.5 times.
Niall FergusonAll empires have depended on local legitimacy and local collaboration; they are not based primarily on coercion. An imperial rule that relies wholly on coercion can't endure. It's too expensive.
Niall FergusonIf the financial system has a defect, it is that it reflects and magnifies what we human beings are like. Money amplifies our tendency to overreact, to swing from exuberance when things are going well to deep depression when they go wrong. Booms and busts are products, at root, of our emotional volatility.
Niall FergusonI refuse to accept that Western civilization is like some hopeless old version of Microsoft DOS, doomed to freeze, then crash. I still cling to the hope that the United States is the Mac to Europe's PC, and that if one part of the West can successfully update and reboot itself, it's America.
Niall FergusonIt'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.
Niall Ferguson