Disaster

A dazzling, original, and thought-provoking history of catastrophes for the future that puts the already known annus horribilis into perspective.

Disasters are difficult to foresee, but today we should be better prepared against catastrophes than the Romans were when Vesuvius erupted or than the Italians were when the Black Death struck in the Middle Ages. After all, we have science. However, as demonstrated by the coronavirus crisis, the response of most developed countries to a new pathogen has been rather clumsy. How is this possible? Niall Ferguson argues, among many other things, that pre-existing pathologies already visible in our responses to other past disasters were at play.

From diverse disciplines, including economics and network science, Doom offers not only a history but also a general theory of disasters, and exposes how our complex and atrophied governance systems are unable to cope with crises.

As Ferguson shows, governments must learn to be less bureaucratic and more resilient if they want to avoid irreversible decline.