The Square and the Tower: Networks and Power, from the Freemasons to Facebook

Synopsis

Most history is hierarchical- it's about popes, presidents, and prime ministers. But what if that's simply because they create the historical archives? What if we are missing equally powerful but less visible networks - leaving them to the conspiracy theorists, with their dreams of all-powerful Illuminati? The twenty-first century has been hailed as the Networked Age. But in The Square and the Tower, Niall Ferguson argues that social networks are nothing new.

From the printers and preachers who made the Reformation to the freemasons who led the American Revolution, it was the networkers who disrupted the old order of popes and kings. Far from being novel, our era is the Second Networked Age, with the computer in the role of the printing press. But networks have a dark side, prone to clustering, contagions, and even outages. And the conflicts of the past already have unnerving parallels today, in the time of Facebook, Islamic State and Trumpworld.

A New York Times Bestseller

Copyright:

2017

Book Details

Book Quality:

Publisher Quality

ISBN-13:

9780735222922

Related ISBNs:

9780735222915

Publisher:

Penguin Publishing Group

Date of Addition:

04/02/18

Copyrighted By:

Niall Ferguson

Adult content:

No

Language:

English

Has Image Descriptions:

No

Categories:

History, Nonfiction, Social Studies, Philosophy, Politics and Government

Submitted By:

Bookshare Staff

Usage Restrictions:

This is a copyrighted book.

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