Niall Ferguson is an author and history professor at Jesus College in Oxford, England. He will be giving two presentations: “The Twentieth Century: Were the Good Guys Bound to Win?” from 10 to 11 a.m. Nov. 4 in the Newberry Library, a panel “History NOW!” from noon to 1:30 p.m. Nov. 4 in National Louis University. Both address different aspects of history and their impact on the present.
Q–How did you get involved in the festival?
A–One of the dangers if you are an academic is that you spend too much time talking to narrow social groups. . . . This is a chance to meet and talk directly to people I would otherwise never meet.
Q–What is your role as a historian?
A–One of the things that historians do is caution against excessive optimism. My job as a historian is to remind people and say that exactly the same thing happened in the 1900s, that sense of technological breakthroughs and spreading of democracy where everyone thought the world was on a high road to nirvana — that all went horribly wrong. With a few little warnings, I can suggest that while the present year 2000 is different in many extraordinary ways from the past, we need to try to figure out what went wrong before and make sure it doesn’t go wrong again.
Q–What are the misconceptions of historians?
A–Over time people thought that historians could answer questions about the future. They thought that they might be able to identify the laws of history which would allow us to foresee the future. But hopefully we have been able to lay that misconception to rest. It is impossible to predict the future because it has a chaotic nature. The most we can do is come up with plausible scenarios.
Q–What lessons have you learned in life?
A–Nothing is more dangerous than mass optimism. It is obviously delightful if all lived happily ever after. The best way to approach that is to think about the possibility that things could not work out. Analyze the situation and try to say what went wrong . . . and what differences were overlooked. I know it is a kind of gloomy, but given the periods of rapid economic growth and globalization, you can see what happened.
