NIALL FERGUSON

HISTORIAN; VISIONARY; AUTHOR; EMMY-WINNING FILMMAKER, THE ASCENT OF MONEY; ONE OF TIME MAGAZINE’S MOST INFLUENTIAL PEOPLE OF THE WORLD

BOOK SPEAKER

Keynote Speaker Category: Brexit, Change, China, Democracy, Economics, Future of Europe, Geopolitics, Global Economy, Global impact of Putin's war, Global Political Landscape, Philosophy, TED Speakers, The Future,

NIALL FERGUSON

Niall Ferguson is a prominent historian and author known for his expertise in economic and financial history, as well as his analysis of historical empires and globalization. His work often explores the intersections of money, power, and culture, offering insights into the forces shaping our world. Ferguson’s contributions to historical scholarship and public discourse have made him a sought-after commentator and speaker on global trends, history’s impact on current events, and the lessons of the past for today’s policymakers. His engaging writing and speaking style make complex historical themes accessible and relevant.

For Niall Ferguson’s Full Bio see below.

Topics:

  • The implications of financial crises throughout history and their impact on society.
  • The rise and fall of empires, analyzing patterns of imperial expansion and decline.
  • The history and future of globalization, exploring economic, political, and cultural dimensions.
  • The evolution of money and the financial system, from ancient times to the digital age.
  • Network theory and the history of social networks, examining their role in shaping historical events.
  • The interface between technology and history, particularly how innovations influence global power structures.

These examples showcase Ferguson’s ability to connect historical analysis with contemporary global issues.

Books:

Niall Ferguson has authored several influential books, covering a wide range of topics from economic and financial history to the complexities of empires and civilization. Some of his notable works include:

  • “The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World” – Exploring the history and impact of money, banking, and finance.
  • “Empire: How Britain Made the Modern World” – Examining the rise and effects of the British Empire.
  • “Civilization: The West and the Rest” – Analyzing the factors that contributed to the dominance of Western civilization.
  • “The Square and the Tower: Networks and Power, from the Freemasons to Facebook” – Investigating the influence of social networks throughout history.
  • “Doom: The Politics of Catastrophe” – Discussing the causes and consequences of disasters throughout history.

These books reflect Ferguson’s ability to connect past and present, offering insights into today’s challenges through the lens of history.

His first, Paper and Iron: Hamburg Business and German Politics in the Era of Inflation 1897-1927, was short-listed for the History Today Book of the Year award, while the collection of essays he edited, Virtual History: Alternatives and Counterfactuals, was a UK bestseller. In 1998 he published to international critical acclaim The Pity of War: Explaining World War One and The World’s Banker: The History of the House of Rothschild. The latter won the Wadsworth Prize for Business History and was also short-listed for the Jewish Quarterly/Wingate Literary Award and the American National Jewish Book Award. In 2001, after a year as a Houblon-Norman Fellow at the Bank of England, he published The Cash Nexus: Money and Power in the Modern World, 1700-2000.

BIOGRAPHY

Niall Ferguson is one of our most influential commentators on Geopolitics and the Global Economy. The wide range of his expertise underscores his ongoing importance as a keynote speaker.
He is a Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and a senior faculty fellow of the Belfer Centre for Science and International Affairs at Harvard, where he served for twelve years as the Laurence A. Tisch Professor of History. He is also a visiting professor at Tsinghua University, Beijing.

In 2003 Ferguson wrote and presented a six-part history of the British Empire for Channel 4. The accompanying book, Empire: The Rise and Demise of the British World Order and the Lessons for Global Power, was a bestseller in both Britain and the United States. The sequel, Colossus: The Rise and Fall of the American Empire, was published in 2004 by Penguin, and prompted Time
magazine to name him one of the 100 most influential people in the world. Two years later he published The War of the World: Twentieth-Century Conflict and the Descent of the West, a television adaptation of which was screened by PBS in 2007. The international bestseller, The Ascent of Money: A
Financial History of the World, followed in 2008; it too was a PBS series, winning the International Emmy award for Best Documentary, as well as the Handelszeitung Economics Book Prize. In 2011 he published Civilization: The West and the Rest, also a Channel 4/PBS documentary series. A year later
came the three-part television series “China: Triumph and Turmoil.” The book based on his 2012 BBC Reith lectures, The Great Degeneration: How Institutions Decay and Economies Die, was a New York Times bestseller within a week of its publication.
An accomplished biographer, Ferguson published High Financier: The Lives and Time of Siegmund Warburg in 2010 and is currently writing a life of Henry Kissinger, the first volume of which was published in 2015—to critical acclaim—as Kissinger, 1923-1968: The Idealist. The book won the 2016 Council on Foreign Relations Arthur Ross Book Award. In 2011 his film company Chimerica Media released its first feature-length documentary, “Kissinger”, which won the New York Film Festival’s prize for Best Documentary.

He is an award-making filmmaker, too, having won an international Emmy for his PBS series “The Ascent of Money.” His many other prizes and awards include the Benjamin Franklin Prize for Public Service (2010), the Hayek Prize for Lifetime Achievement (2012) and the Ludwig Erhard Prize for Economic Journalism (2013).
Ferguson was the Philippe Roman Visiting Professor at the London School of Economics in 2010-11. He is a member of the board of trustees of the New York Historical Society. His many prizes and awards include the GetAbstract International Book Award (2009), the Benjamin Franklin Prize for Public Service (2010), the Hayek Prize for Lifetime Achievement (2012), the Ludwig Erhard Prize for Economic Journalism (2013), the Estoril Global Issues Distinguished Book Prize (2013), and the Philip Merrill.
Award of the American Council of Trustees and Alumni for Outstanding Contributions to Liberal Arts Education (2016). He has received honorary degrees from the University of Buckingham (UK), Macquarie University (Australia), and the Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez (Chile).
In addition to writing a weekly column for the Sunday Times (London) and the Boston Globe, he is the founder and managing director of Greenmantle LLC, a Cambridge-based advisory firm. He also serves on the board of Affiliated Managers Group and is a trustee of the New York Historical Society and the
London-based Centre for Policy Studies.

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