Recommended on this episode
BookRecommended
The Brothers Karamazov
Fyodor Dostoevsky
“you can't really be a complete human being if you haven't read the brothers karamazov”
“you can't really be a complete human being if you haven't if you haven't read the brothers karamazov you will not really you're not grown up”— Niall Ferguson
The guest's own work
BookBy the guestISBN verified
The Ascent of Money
Niall Ferguson
“in the book ascent of money you give a history of the world through the lens of money if the financial system is uh evolutionary nature”— Lex Fridman
BookBy the guest
Doom: The Politics of Catastrophe
Niall Ferguson
“in the book doom the politics of catastrophe your newest book you describe wars pandemics and the terrible disasters in human history”— Lex Fridman
BookBy the guestISBN verified
The Pity of War
Niall Ferguson
“this argument was central to my book the pity of war i i also did an essay in virtual history about this”— Niall Ferguson
BookBy the guestISBN verified
Virtual History
Niall Ferguson
“this argument was central to my book the pity of war i i also did an essay in virtual history about this”— Niall Ferguson
BookBy the guestISBN verified
The War of the World
Niall Ferguson
“he was in many ways articulating the establishment view uh and i tried to show in a book called war of the world how that establishment worked”— Niall Ferguson
BookBy the guestISBN verified
The Square and the Tower
Niall Ferguson
“in a book called the square in the tower i argued that it would be very costly for the united states to allow the public sphere to continue to be dominated by a handful of big tech companies”— Niall Ferguson
Also referenced (named, not recommended)
BookReferencedISBN verified
The Age of AI: And Our Human Future
Henry Kissinger, Eric Schmidt, Daniel Huttenlocher (inferred)
“i've just taken delivery of my copy of the book that eric schmidt and henry kissinger have co-authored on artificial intelligence”— Niall Ferguson
BookReferencedISBN verified
Uncontrolled Spread
Scott Gottlieb
“utter failure of cdc to provide testing that definitely wasn't trump's fault scott gottlieb's book makes that very clear it's just been published recently”— Niall Ferguson
BookReferenced
The Road Less Traveled (Zelikow book on the 1916 failure to make peace)
Philip Zelikow
“as philip zeliko showed in his recent book on the failure to make peace in 1916 woodrow wilson tried and failed to intervene and broker a piece in 1916”— Niall Ferguson
BookReferencedISBN verified
The German Catastrophe (Die deutsche Katastrophe)
Friedrich Meinecke
“this is a really interesting point that friedrich meinecker makes in d deutsche catestor for the german catastrophe the german intellectuals became technocrats”— Niall Ferguson
BookReferenced
Life and Fate
Vasily Grossman
“if only if one reads grossman's life and fate just to take one example one enters a a hellscape that it's extremely hard to imagine oneself in”— Niall Ferguson
BookReferencedISBN verified
The Captive Mind
Czeslaw Milosz
“there's a fantastic book that i'm going to misremember milos is the captive soul the captive mind rather which has a fantastic passage”— Niall Ferguson
BookReferencedISBN verified
In Search of Lost Time (Proust)
Marcel Proust
“i'm currently in the midst of the later stages of of proust's great allah and observation of human relationships is perhaps more meticulous than that of any other writer”— Niall Ferguson
BookReferenced
War and Peace
Leo Tolstoy
“tolstoy had the biggest impact because at the end of war and peace there's this great essay on historical determinism which i think was the reason i became a historian”— Niall Ferguson
BookReferenced
Crime and Punishment
Fyodor Dostoevsky
“raskolnikov's nightmare at the end of crime and punishment in which he imagines in his dream a world in which a terrible virus spreads”— Niall Ferguson
BookReferencedISBN verified
On the Road
Jack Kerouac
“one of my earliest literary simulations was to reenact jack kerouac tripping on the road when i was 17”— Niall Ferguson
BookReferencedISBN verified
Mein Kampf
Adolf Hitler
“it's out of the experience of defeat in 1918 as hitler makes clear in mind camp that he becomes radicalized and enters the political realm”— Niall Ferguson
BookReferenced
An Autobiography (R.G. Collingwood)
R.G. Collingwood
“the great philosopher of history r.g collingwood said in his autobiography which was published in 1939 that the purpose of history was to reconstitute past thought”— Niall Ferguson
MediaReferenced
The Chair
Netflix (inferred)
“they're they're made fun of in that recent netflix series the chair and it is easy to make fun of academic life”— Niall Ferguson
MediaReferenced
Porterhouse Blue
Tom Sharpe
“tom sharpe's porterhouse blue did it it's it's an inherently comical subject professors at least used to be amusingly eccentric”— Niall Ferguson
MediaReferenced
Roblox
Roblox Corporation (inferred)
“tokens in game spaces like roblox will become fungible as my nine-year-old spends a lot more time playing on computer games than i ever did”— Niall Ferguson
ProductReferenced
Oculus
Meta (inferred)
“we have virtual reality already in our heads we do not need oculus in the metaverse”— Niall Ferguson
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