The result, in Ferguson’s case, is a book containing some genuine wisdom, but also some perplexing lacunae. What unites these writers is their disregard for traditional disciplinary boundaries and a determination to reach for synoptic knowledge of stupefyingly complex subjects. It belongs on the shelf next to recent ambitious and eclectic books by authors like Jared Diamond, Nassim Nicholas Taleb and Steven Pinker. If the book’s vast temporal scope leads it to resemble histories written in earlier times, its drive to pronounce on events in cultures spanning the globe and its heavy reliance on cutting-edge theories makes Doom very much a product of our moment. a book that hopscotches breezily across continents and centuries while also displaying an impressive command of the latest research in a large number of specialized fields, among them medical history, epidemiology, probability theory, cliodynamics and network theory. The subject might not seem immediately appealing in such bleak times, but readers will find much to relish nonetheless. Each chapter of this thought-provoking book is worth reading for the ideas, perceptiveness and well-told stories of landmark events. Its range seems strange at times too, with an analysis of US policy towards China, which Ferguson believes was broadly successful under Trump, at odds with earlier discussions of earthquakes and other natural disasters. Allen Lane would have done well to have produced an edition properly tailored to a domestic audience. I also wonder why a book published here by a British historian is presented in Americanese, even if Ferguson does now live in the US. Much of Ferguson’s story is told with zest, with extracts from Monty Python, Daniel Defoe and the poetry of John Donne deployed in the course of his arguments, although at other times his text is challenging. there many new insights here, notably that for all the criticisms levelled at Donald Trump, Boris Johnson and others, it’s facile to blame the person at the top for all that goes wrong when usually the real culprit in a catastrophe is a system failure. it’s historical analysis of how disasters occur, rather than his crystal ball gazing, that’s the most interesting part of his book.
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