The square and the tower : networks, hierarchies and the struggle for global power
Ferguson, Niall2017
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What if everything we thought we knew about history was wrong? From Niall Ferguson, the global bestselling author of Empire, The Ascent of Money and Civilization, this is a whole new way of imagining the world. Most history is hierarchical: it's about popes, presidents, and prime ministers. But what if that's simply because they create the historical archives? What if we are missing equally powerful but less visible networks - leaving them to the conspiracy theorists, with their dreams of all-powerful Illuminati? The twenty-first century has been hailed as the Networked Age. But in The Square and the Tower Niall Ferguson argues that social networks are nothing new. From the printers and preachers who made the Reformation to the freemasons who led the American Revolution, it was the networkers who disrupted the old order of popes and kings. Far from being novel, our era is the Second Networked Age, with the computer in the role of the printing press. Once we understand this, both the past, and the future, start to look very different indeed.
Main title:
Author:
Imprint:
[London] : Allen Lane, an imprint of Penguin Books, 2017.
Collation:
xxvii, 573 pages, [16] unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations (some color) ; 24 cm.
Notes:
Includes bibliographical references (pages 439-536) and index.
Contents:
Machine generated contents note: pt. I Introduction: Networks and Hierarchies -- 1.The Mystery of the Illuminati -- 2.Our Networked Age -- 3.Networks, Networks Everywhere -- 4.Why Hierarchies? -- 5.From Seven Bridges to Six Degrees -- 6.Weak Ties and Viral Ideas -- 7.Varieties of Network -- 8.When Networks Meet -- 9.Seven Insights -- 10.The Illuminati Illuminated -- pt. II Emperors and Explorers -- 11.A Brief History of Hierarchy -- 12.The First Networked Age -- 13.The Art of the Renaissance Deal -- 14.Discoverers -- 15.Pizarro and the Inca -- 16.When Gutenberg Met Luther -- pt. III Letters and Lodges -- 17.The Economic Consequences of the Reformation -- 18.Trading Ideas -- 19.Networks of Enlightenment -- 20.Networks of Revolution -- pt. IV The Restoration of Hierarchy -- 21.The Red and the Black -- 22.From Crowd to Tyranny -- 23.Order Restored -- 24.The House of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha -- 25.The House of Rothschild -- 26.Industrial Networks -- 27.From Pentarchy to Hegemony --Contents note continued: pt. V Knights of the Round Table -- 28.An Imperial Life -- 29.Empire -- 30.Taiping -- 31.`The Chinese Must Go' -- 32.The Union of South Africa -- 33.Apostles -- 34.Armageddon -- pt. VI Plagues and Pipers -- 35.Greenmantle -- 36.The Plague -- 37.The Leader Principle -- 38.The Fall of the Golden International -- 39.The Ring of Five -- 40.Brief Encounter -- 41.Ella in Reform School -- pt. VII Own the Jungle -- 42.The Long Peace -- 43.The General -- 44.The Crisis of Complexity -- 45.Henry Kissinger's Network of Power -- 46.Into the Valley -- 47.The Fall of the Soviet Empire -- 48.The Triumph of Davos Man -- 49.Breaking the Bank of England -- pt. VIII The Library of Babel -- 50.9/11/2001 -- 51.9/15/2008 -- 52.The Administrative State -- 53.Web 2.0 -- 54.Coming Apart -- 55.Tweeting the Revolution -- 56.11/9/2016 -- pt. IX Conclusion: Facing Cyberia -- 57.Metropolis -- 58.Network Outage -- 59.FANG, BAT and EU -- 60.The Square and the Tower Redux.
ISBN:
9780241298985
Dewey class:
302.309
Language:
English
Subject:
BRN:
337234
More Information:
| Location | Collection | Call number | Status/Desc |
|---|---|---|---|
| Beaumaris Library | Adult Non Fiction - Society and Beliefs | 302.309 FER | Available |