The Square and the Tower - Niall Ferguson

This review has been submitted to Cdn Army Today Magazine

Title: The Square and the Tower

Author: Niall Ferguson

ISBN: 978-0-735-22291-5

Publisher: Penguin Press

Year: 2018

Hardcover

Pages: 563

Niall Ferguson’s area of expertise is economic history; he has been the author of a number of very engaging books ranging from the impacts of empire to the history of money. With this work, he has turned his attention to the ongoing struggle for power and influence between two fundamentally different elements in the quest for supremacy. The title of the book “The Square and the Tower” refer to St Mark’s Square in Venice where the mercantile class would meet to peddle their goods and the Tower, immediately adjacent to the Square, where the rulers of Venice held court. The ‘square’ refers to a horizontal proliferation of information and influence between individuals along a common, informal plain; whereas the ‘tower’ is a vertical or stratified application of control, culminating in a defined head or council. Throughout history, traditional leadership, be they monarchs, parliaments or dictatorships, have struggled with the real or perceived influences of the non-traditional groups or social networks such as unions, freemasons, illuminati or the like.

Ferguson suggests that accepted history in the modern age has, to a great extent, been a product that has been promulgated by the more traditional elements of our societies and that there are significant components that may have been disregarded or lost as a result; less traditional stories being relegated to the bin of conspiracy theory. Drawing upon different concepts of network theory (such as degrees of separation, viral contagions and homophily), he endeavours to show that the modern revolution in unstructured technology has resulted, not in a new or unique situation, but in what he describes as a Second Network Revolution founded in such things as the internet and Facebook.

The book is not an easy read nor does it have a sense of where it would like to lie; as a scientific analysis of the issues, a journalistic report or a historical, sociological treatise. While suggesting that the impact of Networks has not been the subject of a lot of historical attention, there is ample information, studies and analysis relating to organizational development to draw that conclusion into question. Ferguson also intersperses his discussion of Network theory with a series of charts and graphs that provide visual representations in support of his discussions.

Overall, the author has presented a work that feels that it is over-emphasizing the uniqueness of its discussion. Additionally, there are elements of the work that leave the reader hanging, looking for further explanation or expansion. As a historical work, some of Ferguson's observations appear to be quite general and lacking in the deeper scrutiny one would have anticipated.

Nevertheless, while not the best of Ferguson's work, this book certainly provides the reader with an interesting and thoughtful analysis of his thesis. Furthermore, there is ample suggestion and information to stimulate follow-on questions and discussion. The on-going struggle between extra-national social networking companies and traditional methods of governance are not going away and this book provides a timely and insightful discussion.