As Ferguson shows, governments must learn to become less bureaucratic if we are to avoid the impending doom of irreversible decline. Drawing from multiple disciplines, including economics and network science, Doom: The Politics of Catastrophe offers not just a history but a general theory of. While populist rulers certainly performed poorly in the face of the pandemic, Niall Ferguson argues that more profound pathologies were at work – pathologies already visible in our responses to earlier disasters.ĭrawing from multiple disciplines, including economics and network science, Doom: The Politics of Catastrophe offers not just a history but a general theory of disaster. Yet the responses of many developed countries to a new pathogen from China were badly bungled. Niall Ferguson’s new book exposes humanities obsession with calamity. But when catastrophe strikes, we ought to be better prepared than the Romans were when Vesuvius erupted or medieval Italians when the Black Death struck. Insightful, productively provocative and downright brilliant New York Times A compelling history of catastrophes and their consequences, from the most brilliant British historian of his generation (The Times) Disasters are inherently hard to predict. These are generally due to plagues, wars, or natural disasters. Disasters are inherently hard to predict. Doom is largely made up of detailed accountings of things going terribly awry for humans.

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