When it happens, you're really thrown, and no matter how well educated you think you are.
I think my grandfather went through a whole succession of disasters beginning with the First World War, but most of us get one big disaster or maybe two. Not many of us get to experience multiple disasters. That one is struggling to make sense of this unfolding disaster because it is very unfamiliar. The other thing I think is quite important, that's the sense of confusion. We struggle a bit to grasp the idea of a suddenly increased probability of mortality that applies to us. That's a really important and curious human quirk.
It might possibly be happening to somebody else, but it can't really kill you. The unreality comes partly from the sense that it can't possibly be happening to you. The second point that hit me when I was reading a book about the outbreak of World War I, Louis-Ferdinand Céline's extraordinary account at the beginning of Voyage au bout de la nuit. It's the fact, that to the individual caught up in a disaster, there is a strange sense of unreality. So that's the first idea, that we really can and should think about pandemics and wars within the same framework.
In many ways, COVID-19 illustrates that really well, even if you don't believe the lab leak hypothesis, though that's looking more and more likely as an explanation of the origin of the pandemic. That's the same whether you're confronted by a war or a pandemic, and I make the argument, which is really borrowed from Amartya Sen's argument about famines, that the distinction between the natural and the man-made catastrophes are forced dichotomy. The obvious one is excess mortality, the sudden increase in mortality above what might have been expected based on our relatively recent experience, a sudden increase in the probability of premature death. But there are a couple of things that I think all disasters have in common, certainly the kinds of disasters I'm interested in. It might seem rather eclectic array of unfortunate events, and you might wonder what business I have bringing wars and pandemics together with earthquakes and wildfires. These events happened across many different times and places, but what are the common features in your view, the recurring patterns, and where does COVID-19, the crisis surrounding it, rank among the disasters you discuss? These range from the Black Death during the 14th century and the Napoleonic wars of the 19th century to the Titanic sinking in 1911 and the Great Famine in Mao's China during the 20th century. Niall Ferguson: It's a pleasure to join you, Brian.īrian Anderson: You analyze in Doom dozens of historical disasters. So Niall, thanks very much for joining us today.
Rhinoceros 6 for mac уроки на русском free#
Throughout our conversation, please feel free to submit your questions on whatever platform you're watching this on, and we'll do our best to get to as many as we can. In his new booked called Doom, he investigates the common features of geological and atmospheric, political and geopolitical, biological and technological disasters with that goal in mind. Political and natural catastrophes are often entwined, and we should try to understand the causes and characteristics of past calamities to help us grasp today's and perhaps better prepare for future disasters. It was certainly a troubling year.Īs Niall's book shows, however, disasters and crises are never entirely unprecedented.
As COVID-19 spread across the world, public officials cited the unique threat of the virus to justify extreme interventions in daily life, and then civil unrest and violence exploded in US cities in a kind of political or social contagion that accompanied the public health emergency. Last year was an unprecedented time, or so it seemed. He's the Milbank Family Senior Fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution and an acclaimed historian who's written books on everything from finance and social networks to Henry Kissinger and the British empire. This is Brian Anderson, the editor of City Journal, and joining me today to discuss his latest book is indeed Niall Ferguson. Brian Anderson: Welcome back to the 10 Blocks Podcast.