The Square and the Tower: Networks and Power, From the Freemasons to Facebook
Niall Ferguson
History, politics
I've liked some of Ferguson's previous books, particularly The Ascent of Money, but The Square and the Tower is too long for its content. The first portion, describing some of the basics of network theory, is interesting but largely disconnected from the remainder. Said remainder consists of sweepingly vague statements, interspersed among a plethora of fairly unremarkable examples, delivered in orotund (read: pompous) prose. Also, Ferguson wastes chapters delivering long, thunderous denunciations of things that everybody is already against. (Apparently Stalinism and Islamic terrorism are both Bad Things. Who knew?)
A title like this begs for a strong theoretical spine. What we get is a monologue to the effect that there are networks, and there are hierarchies, and here are some examples of each. At 592 pages, that's a lot of book for a very unremarkable observation.
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