SQUARE AND THE TOWER

Sub-titled 'Networks and Power, From the Freemasons to Facebook', this is a brilliant recasting of the turning points in world history including the one we are living through, as the struggle between old power hierarchies and the new social networks continues. Most history is hierarchical, about popes, presidents, prime ministers and other potentates. It's about states, armies and corporations, it's about orders from on high, but what if that's simply because hierarchical institutions create the archives that historians rely on? What if we are missing the less visible social networks that are the true drivers of change, leaving them to the conspiracy theorists, with their dreams of all-powerful Illuminati? The 21st century has been hailed as the Age of Networks but 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. It is through networks that revolutionary ideas can spread like contagions. From the cults of Ancient Rome to the dynasties of the Renaissance, from the Founding Fathers to Facebook, Ferguson argues that our era is the Second Networked Age, with the personal computer in the role of the printing press. He shows how network theory, concepts such as homophily, degrees of separation, weak ties, viral contagions, and phase transitions can transform our understanding of both the past and the present. The book looks at Silicon Valley as storm clouds gather over the tech titans, those who prophesize a global community of interconnected netizens are in for a shock, and Ferguson warns as he shows unnerving parallels today in the time of Facebook, the Islamic State and Donald Trump. Chapters include Pizarro and the Inca, When Gutenberg Met Luther, Networks of Enlightenment, The Houses of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha and Rothschild, The Union of South Africa, The Plague, Henry Kissinger's Network of Power, Breaking the Bank of England, Tweeting the Revolution, Cambridge Analytica and Brexit As A Dress Rehearsal for the US Presidential Election of 2016 and much more. A fascinating read, 563pp, colour photos and diagrams. Remainder mark.