For The Record

I thought I'd repost the comment I left responding to Evan's comment about Niall Ferguson:

I've read the Pity of War, which I agree with you is a masterpiece, also the history of the Rothschilds and the Cash Nexus---I've only seen the c-span booknotes on Empire or Colossus (can't remember which).

I think Ferguson's views are extremely idiosyncratic and tend to get ventriloquized by certain kinds of conservatives who aren't very sophisticated as interpreters. With the books on empire, this op-ed, etc., I think he's saying, in a kind of Scottish deadpan, look, here are the conditions for empire-building, and here are the consequences. On the latter score, he's saying that we need to revise our perceptions of what the British empire did, and I think he's partly right. On the former, he's essentially warning Americans not to assume that empire can be had on the cheap, that you can have a cafeteria-imperialism where you only pick the things you like (excluding, obviously, the word "empire,"), because the consequences for the world would be disastrous.

Essentially, I think he's trying to outline a historical problem that doesn't get enough attention, and such solutions as people think he offers are either just forced [changed from "forces," a typo--ed.] or (more commonly) assumed by interpreters who read their own biases into his work. The problem is: the British empire did a number of things, some right, some wrong, that only America is in a position to do today. But America isn't very good at them; on the other hand if America just chooses not to engage, then the consequences might be even worse than a botched imperialism. I don't entirely agree, but it's a much more nuanced position than "Take up the white man's burden."

To that I would add, read the Pity of War if you haven't yet, it is the best history of World War I written in English. (And as a further bonus, it's a way of antagonizing Paul Kennedy. FWIW, Ferguson was considered for a position at Yale after he decided to leave Oxford; there was some asinine official reason given for turning him down, I'd be shocked if the real reason wasn't Kennedy's enmity. Now he's (surprise!) at Harvard, and Yale misses out on having one the best lecturers in history as well as best historians of his generation.)