I have just issued Niall Fergusson's The War of The World and have started reading it. Now me reading nial fergusson is something which has a bit of a history. As in me trying to read, i should say. The history goes back a bit of a way, as history is wont to do. I was in college and I don't quite remember whose paper it was that his book was required reading, and i don't remember which one it was either. But I have to assume that it was The Ascent of Money, since I vaguely remember it being an economic history paper. All this is hindsight research. Well, anyway, all I took away from my college days other than a massive hangover which resulted in a general amnesia about what I studied ( I just don't want to admit that I didn't touch my books very much) was the very vague notion that there was a really old man called Niall Fergusson and he Wrote Books Which Are About History And They Must Be Good Since My Very Important College Listed Them As Essential Reading.
Now fast forward to a more recent date of say of the time I saw Borat. And any self respecting stalker would be peeing in their pants to find that Sacha Baron Cohen is actually a seriously posh Brit who is a history graduate from Christ's College, Cambridge. How awesome is that??? Drool worthy, right? We all want our filmstars to be smart and geeky. As in intellectual not the nerd glassy types. He has a brain!!! Yay! Ok, then you find out that, he studied under Niall Fergusson! (Mind you I still didnt know who the fuck this man actually was or had read a word by his hand) And I am more in love with him ( Sacha Baron Cohen, not Fergusson). The historian, by this point, has become an evaluating point, a mark of distinction that marks an article or somebody as a genuine thing (Damn you institutionalized- well institution!) just because my college, which happened to produce a record number of people who all go to JNU and DU and Abroad and do wonderful academic things which I know not of. Dumb, right? Well it doesn't end there.
So, when do I discover who this Niall Fergusson actually is? Well, now, actually. When I wash my hands off academia and move into more... well, creative endeavors, do I discover that yes, I do actually quite like knowing thing which might be categorized as academic, but please don't test me on it. And so, go into the library of my present captor who's trying to teach me, because I had just read a Bertrand Russell essay (this again for the first time. yes, I know. considering he was one of my granddad's heroes, and very high brow, I have never ever bothered to read him. Because I have never been that smart) and quite liked it, and decided I wanted to read some more of things like that, and I discover a new(?) Niall Fergusson book! I issue it. Because Im not supposed to be issuing anything other than design books(obviously) and start reading. And then I do some stalking. And I realize that he is not An Old Historian. He is infact, younger than my own mother.
Also, what I glean from the book, as far into the introduction of the book I have read, is that I don't like him very much. Sure he seems to be smart, and says things quite cleverly, but he seems to support things that I despise. Like superiority or race and the western empire. Not very nice reading so far for me, who, mind you, still takes the British Raj as a personal insult. But I think, oh well, now, how will I ever get objective if I only read stuff that I think are right, right? Well, the internet tells me, oh, he isn't that big a deal. He's a rockstar academic. And definitely not Brian Cox. Brian Cox is a real rockstar, because he really does work that matters- like recreating the big bang at CERN. He only comes to look befuddled on the Jonathan Ross Show. And loves playing with liquid nitrogen. Well fergusson , on the other hand, is apparently a big empire revivalist, and wouldnt mind that happening again, and he used to advice McCain, and he married a muslim woman, but only because somewhere deep down she really appreciates the superiority of the western state and political thought. Arrogant and horrible much? Well anyway, I hope this doesn't taint my reading of the book, but I strongly suspect it already has. Gah!
Now fast forward to a more recent date of say of the time I saw Borat. And any self respecting stalker would be peeing in their pants to find that Sacha Baron Cohen is actually a seriously posh Brit who is a history graduate from Christ's College, Cambridge. How awesome is that??? Drool worthy, right? We all want our filmstars to be smart and geeky. As in intellectual not the nerd glassy types. He has a brain!!! Yay! Ok, then you find out that, he studied under Niall Fergusson! (Mind you I still didnt know who the fuck this man actually was or had read a word by his hand) And I am more in love with him ( Sacha Baron Cohen, not Fergusson). The historian, by this point, has become an evaluating point, a mark of distinction that marks an article or somebody as a genuine thing (Damn you institutionalized- well institution!) just because my college, which happened to produce a record number of people who all go to JNU and DU and Abroad and do wonderful academic things which I know not of. Dumb, right? Well it doesn't end there.
So, when do I discover who this Niall Fergusson actually is? Well, now, actually. When I wash my hands off academia and move into more... well, creative endeavors, do I discover that yes, I do actually quite like knowing thing which might be categorized as academic, but please don't test me on it. And so, go into the library of my present captor who's trying to teach me, because I had just read a Bertrand Russell essay (this again for the first time. yes, I know. considering he was one of my granddad's heroes, and very high brow, I have never ever bothered to read him. Because I have never been that smart) and quite liked it, and decided I wanted to read some more of things like that, and I discover a new(?) Niall Fergusson book! I issue it. Because Im not supposed to be issuing anything other than design books(obviously) and start reading. And then I do some stalking. And I realize that he is not An Old Historian. He is infact, younger than my own mother.
Also, what I glean from the book, as far into the introduction of the book I have read, is that I don't like him very much. Sure he seems to be smart, and says things quite cleverly, but he seems to support things that I despise. Like superiority or race and the western empire. Not very nice reading so far for me, who, mind you, still takes the British Raj as a personal insult. But I think, oh well, now, how will I ever get objective if I only read stuff that I think are right, right? Well, the internet tells me, oh, he isn't that big a deal. He's a rockstar academic. And definitely not Brian Cox. Brian Cox is a real rockstar, because he really does work that matters- like recreating the big bang at CERN. He only comes to look befuddled on the Jonathan Ross Show. And loves playing with liquid nitrogen. Well fergusson , on the other hand, is apparently a big empire revivalist, and wouldnt mind that happening again, and he used to advice McCain, and he married a muslim woman, but only because somewhere deep down she really appreciates the superiority of the western state and political thought. Arrogant and horrible much? Well anyway, I hope this doesn't taint my reading of the book, but I strongly suspect it already has. Gah!
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