The Square and the Tower-AIM-0735222932

Title : The Square and the Tower: Networks and Power, from the Freemasons to Facebook Paperback – Illustrated, January 22, 2019
by Niall Ferguson (Author)
ASIN 0735222932


Most history is hierarchical: it's about emperors, presidents, prime ministers and field marshals. It's about states, armies and corporations. It's about orders from on high. Even history "from below" is often about trade unions and workers' parties. But what if that's simply because hierarchical institutions create the archives that historians rely on? What if we are missing the informal, less well documented social networks that are the true sources of power and drivers of change?

The 21st century has been hailed as the Age of Networks. However, in The Square and the Tower, Niall Ferguson argues that networks have always been with us, from the structure of the brain to the food chain, from the family tree to freemasonry.