It\u2019s early in the morning in the Glasgow-born US citizen\u2019s home in northern California, and we can hear his young children having their breakfast. Sun streams through the windows, but we\u2019re cheerfully discussing war, famine, pestilence and death. The Four Horseman of the Apocalypse gallop across the pages of Ferguson\u2019s new book, Doom: The Politics of Catastrophe, but he is less concerned with the proximate causes of disasters \u2013 a mutated virus, a crop failure, a military conflict \u2013 than with the ways in which societies act to increase or mitigate the deaths that ensue.<\/p>\n
Ferguson\u2019s title is lifted from \u201cWe\u2019re doomed!\u201d, the catchphrase uttered with relish by fellow Scot Private Frazer in the classic BBC sitcom Dad\u2019s Army. \u201cUltimately our relationship to death is a strange one. We\u2019re a bit in denial about it and we\u2019re a bit obsessed with it.\u201d We\u2019re particularly obsessed, he says, with mass disaster. \u201cBecause the end of the world is such an interesting idea. And yet when an actual disaster happens, we act shocked and surprised.\u201d<\/p>\n
In part, Doom is a rebuke to the overuse of words like \u201cunprecedented\u201d and phrases such as \u201ca year like no other\u201d. It offers a sweeping compendium of the many appalling catastrophes that have befallen us throughout human history. Covid-19 seems a bit of a damp squib by comparison.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe perception that 2020 was a year like no other was essentially based on an ignorance of history,\u201d Ferguson says. \u201cThe 1950s saw some pandemics that were global in scale and comparable in their impact on population. It\u2019s just that we\u2019ve forgotten about them.\u201d Doom specifically compares the \u201cAsian flu\u201d of 1957. \u201cIn terms of excess mortality, its impact was almost exactly the same as 2020.\u201d<\/p>\n
Read it all<\/a>.<\/p>\n "Doom is a rebuke to the overuse of words like 'unprecedented' and phrases such as 'a year like no other'. It offers a sweeping compendium of the many appalling catastrophes that have befallen us throughout human history." https:\/\/t.co\/7PaJqPh1og<\/a><\/p>\n — Niall Ferguson (@nfergus) June 6, 2021<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n \n