Book review: The Great Degeneration: How Institutions Decay and Economies Die, by Niall Ferguson.
Read (or skim) Reinhart and Rogoff’s book This Time is Different instead. The Great Degeneration contains little value beyond a summary of that.
The other part which comes closest to analyzing US decay is a World Bank report about governance quality from 1996 to 2011 which shows the US in decline from 2000 to 2009. He makes some half-hearted attempts to argue for a longer trend using anecdotes that don’t really say much.
Large parts of the book are just standard ideological fluff.
“Large parts of the book are just standard ideological fluff.”
I have noticed that about Ferguson’s books in general. It’s a sad commentary on the times we live in. He seems to be going on the path of France’s ‘public intellectuals’ (looking at you, Bernard Henri-Levy) – feted heavily and lionized by media, with little to show for it in terms of real value-add.
IMHO, Ferguson’s lack of analytical sophistication was most apparent in his book on the “Killer Apps” of the West. The co-opting of mental models from the tech sector masks sloppy analysis and glosses over emergent and established economic trends.
Having said all that, I still enjoy Ferguson’s books. It’s like watching a penguin playing the piano. One is distinctly unimpressed by the result, but fascinated by the process.