Word: ferguson
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...themes Ferguson develops are similar to those developed this month by University President Lawrence H. Summers in his three-part Godkin lectures on globalization. Responding to Joseph Stiglitz’s Globalization and Its Discontents, Summers argued that in the attempt to provide a more “balanced” approach, history books have distorted the history of industrialization and globalization. While the Industrial Revolution brought prosperity and the free exchange of goods, it did so through racist policies, violence and exploiting weaker peoples. Thus, many new textbooks take a neutral view of the Industrial Revolution—sort...
However, Summers argued that industrialization did much good, bringing unthinkable wealth to billions across the globe. Ferguson makes an analogous argument about Britain’s imperial history...
...world today is a product of the British Empire, Ferguson argues. And furthermore, he says, we’re lucky that it is. Britain’s empire brought the world liberty, the first global economy, free exchange of goods, parliamentary democracy, English forms of land tenure, Common Law and English banking practices. It is notable that Ferguson’s list closely parallels the three-point recipe for successful economic development that Summers gave last week: integration into the world economy, sound fiscal and monetary policy and institutions to protect property rights and enforce contracts. Indeed...
Nevertheless, the book is filled with less-than-rosy incidents from Britain’s imperial history. Indeed, Ferguson does not gloss over the exploitation, violence and racism that lay at the empire’s heart. Instead, by offering a wider perspective, Ferguson forces a reconsideration of the empire’s legacy. Although British ships did transport three million African slaves to the New World, it was the British government decided to abolish slavery and “to sweep the…seas of the atrocious commerce.” Brazil, Portugal and Spain all abolished slavery...
...closing chapters, Ferguson argues that through the two world wars, the British Empire sacrificed itself to halt the rise of the Nazi, Japanese and Italian empires. In a rhetorical flourish, he asks, “Did not that sacrifice alone expunge all the Empire’s other sins...