Niall Ferguson

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His "empire hooray!" views are really off-putting. My lecturers told us to steer clear of his nonsense.

>Niall Ferguson
Literally who?

>>31295
What do you mean by off-putting?

>>31217
>Is he /his/ approved?
No. He is a whig historian of conservatism and his work is blandly replaceable by any doctoral candidates contributions.

>>31217
maybe when he understands how inflation works

>>31217
He's alright. At least he gets history across to the masses. Mary Beard is superior though.

>>31334
A historian many normies can actually recognise.

>>31295

I don't understand how this is an argument against Ferguson, he simply gives a perspective about the influence the English-speaking world has on the rest of the globe, and it's definitely not American Exceptionalism. Personally I find his input valuable if not incomplete.

>>31295
He's right you know, despite what your lefty lecturers tell you. The British empire (post-1833 anyway) was unequivocally a force for good in the world.

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>>32391
>basically destroyed the Indian economy
>force for good

>>32391
Ignoring the fact that Tacitus basically annihilated the idea of the benevolent empire 2000 fucking years ago, the most damning thing you can say about the British Empire is that the 'civilising mission' failed. Since saying "oh loads of people were exploited and murdered" would be a positive for people like you, the next best thing is that the Empire failed even by it's own standards.

Anyway Niall Ferguson is basically your common-or-garden bourgeois historian who exists to defend white supremacy.

>>32391
>good
History isn't about "oughts" it is about "is"es.

>>31217

>Le Jews were hated and persecuted because they were so successful and the dumb goyim were jelly of them xD xD

Literally trash

>>32460
>>32516
>>32391
But the British economy made great increases at this time. It's a game of national interests at which the British were much better than the Indians. Don't know why people get bent out of shape over the ethics of these things.

>>31295
>I won't bother engaging with anything this person has to say because I am butthurt about a single opinion that they hold

you really aren't much of a student if this is the way you approach life

>>32460
>built railways
>weakened the caste system
>elevated the status of women
>abolished slavery
>introduced modern education and agricultural techniques
>not good
>implying India wasn't dirt poor like the whole world before contact with the west

>>32553
because free trade would have made all the economies greater

do you think that the chinese economy would improve if they bombed the shit out of America? no because they're trading partners

>>32553
I am bent out of shape over Ferguson's writing being driven by his need to lionise the greatness of conservatism to the point at which his historiography is bent out of shape.

It isn't the "ethics," it is Ferguson's injection of "ethics" into historiography.

>>32612
Yeah, but professors lecturing about WW2 don't tell their students to read holocaust denial literature.

Besides, not that guy but for a class I watched one of his British Empire documentaries, so I was able to note down all the bullshit in it in real time.

>>32630
India was one of the biggest economies before British invasion and accounted for something like 25% of global output, British occupation drove it down to something like 4% of world output

the idea India was some backwards poor shit hole before the British got there is an imperialist myth to cover up the British economic mismanagement of the subcontinent

>>32650
Ferguson is an atheist and is married to a black African feminist. He's not exactly what I'd call a conservative.

>>32630
The railways which were made to cart resources around for the British. Also in quite a few cases the British actually reinforced the caste society. And we're all aware everyone in Britain was a millionaire during the Victorian period.

This is ignoring how the British caused a famine in Bengal. Twice.

>>32713
>British occupation drove it down to something like 4% of world output

That's misleading as fuck. Europe's growth to economic supremacy obviously would mean that India's output would decline as a percentage retard.

>>32679
IDK what school you went to but even at pre degree level study of WW2 we read Irving, ofc with the caveat that he was a holocaust denier but nonetheless, we read him

>I was able to note down the bullshit in real time
like what?

people like to write Ferguson off by just dismissing him as a racist or something, who thinks that the Empire was perfect when he has never atttempted to deny the crimes and failings of the British Empire. His point is simply that 1) the countries annexed by the UK were often no better before they became a part of the Empire than they were afterwards, 2) that the successes of Empire are ignored while the failings are broadcast

>"The moral simplification urge is an extraordinarily powerful one, especially in this country, where imperial guilt can lead to self-flagellation," he told a reporter. "And it leads to very simplistic judgments. The rulers of western Africa prior to the European empires were not running some kind of scout camp. They were engaged in the slave trade. They showed zero sign of developing the country's economic resources. Did Senegal ultimately benefit from French rule? Yes, it's clear. And the counterfactual idea that somehow the indigenous rulers would have been more successful in economic development doesn't have any credibility at all."[17]

>>32747
He wanks over the British Empire and he once said "I think Marx is right, I'm just rooting for the Bourgeois." Being an athiest says nothing for your political beliefs. He's pretty firmly right-wing at least economically.

>>32754
could you provide some evidence for this claim about the Bengal famines that don't come from a Marxist?

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>He wanks over the British Empire
Best empire to wank over IMO.
What's wrong with rooting for the Bourgeoise? It's not like the proles are anything special.

His wife is pretty qt as far as african muslim feminists go

>>32821
that quote, if genuine, sounds extremely tongue in cheek obviously.

>>32834
http://www.ibtimes.com/bengal-famine-1943-man-made-holocaust-1100525

I'll try to get back to you with more.

>>32981
I believe the Japanese caused that one friend.

>>32834
>could you provide some evidence for this claim about the Bengal famines that don't come from a Marxist?

UK Cabinet papers 1943-1944. Australian Cabinet papers 1943-1944.

>>32747
>Ferguson is an atheist and is married to a black African feminist. He's not exactly what I'd call a conservative.

This is an ad hominem. Talk about the man's works.

>>32981
>>33066
>1943
seriously?

>>32957
>Best empire to wank over IMO.
Why wank to any? See: Tacitus
>What's wrong with rooting for the Bourgeoise? It's not like the proles are anything special.
It's not a question of 'rooting' for anything. Marx wasn't saying "Oh the proles are lovely people and they deserve a revolution" because those ideas of being worthy or whatever is irrelevant, because Marx wasn't making a moralistic argument.

>>33066
>the war happened
>Japan cuts off rice to bengal
>the government chose to divert aid to people fighting the war
>the british somehow caused the famine rather than choosing the lesser of two awful evils
>>33085
I didn't mean it as an insult just a statement of facts.

>>33108
Is this the John Oliver meme?

>>33290
>The British chose to let the Indians die because their lives were worth less

>>33298
no

it simply seems a little harsh to say in the least to criticise the British for diverting food to troops fighting the Nazis and the Japanese, unless you think that the world would have been better off had the British fed the Indians but lost the war

>>33311
pretty much yeah, do you have a problem with that? No-one here is pretending that war is a pleasant business, but the side that feeds its troops is probably going to win against the side that feeds a load of civilians on the other side of the world who are not contributing to the war effort

>>33290
>>33311
It gets worse. Australia was willing to supply the food. The question was shipping. Churchill in cabinet decided not to allow such shipping.

>>33311
>the British chose to win the war so that the Japanese wouldn't rule India and the Nazis wouldn't rule Europe
Sounds like the right decision to me.

>>33355
>it simply seems a little harsh to say in the least to criticise the British for diverting food to troops fighting the Nazis and the Japanese, unless you think that the world would have been better off had the British fed the Indians but lost the war
I just feel that considering that the war was basically won by Russia and India anyway, trying to pass off the British Cabinet's racism and ignoring >>33384 under the reasoning of 'tough war-time sacrifices' is complete bullshit.

I'm interested to see if you're this interested in defending the 1770 Bengal famine though, to be fair to you.

>>32488
>Anyway Niall Ferguson is basically your common-or-garden bourgeois historian who exists to defend white supremacy.

>white supremacy

butthurt leftist detected

>>33288
Yes he was. He was as sentimental as anyone else, he just didn't realise it

>>32391
Muh gorta mor began in 1845 senpai.

>>33527
It is almost as if (as Wallerstein wrote) there are two Marxes, a sentimental Marx who believes in species-being and sees the proletariat as the fulfillment of this, and a scientific Marx who sees only the production of complete alienation during the point of production, and so the immanent possibility of a complete overthrowing of all exploitative human relations.

You're confusing identification of immanence with desire.

>>33665
>literally philosophy undergraduate the post

>>33787
Take it to /pol/ lads

>>32488
>white supremacy
post discarded, go back to reddit

>>33497
seriously he's married to a black african.
>>33492
read this:
http://historynewsnetwork.org/article/129891
also 1770 was before company rule was even solidified, not sure how you can blame that one on the British government

>>33835

>m-muh /pol/

>>>/lit/erally kill yourself.

>>33893
Considering the Company did nothing to relieve the famine and in fact exacerbated it by raising taxes etc. I'd say the British can get the blame there, yeah.

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v33/n21/pankaj-mishra/watch-this-man

>>34000
Like Edmund Burke I am no defender of the Company.

>>34004

>butthurt pooinloo's opinion
>relevant

kek almost got me m8.

>>33893
>seriously he's married to a black african.
ad hominems are worthless whether used to praise or castigate. Make a real argument.

>>31423
>whig historian of conservatism
>whig
>conservatism

>>34156
>Mr. Ferguson is clearly not a white supremacist as he's married to a black woman.
There, how's that?

>>32647
>Free trade
>With the entire rest of the world, America included, enthralled by mercantilism

>>34217
>I have a lot of black friends

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>>34214

Which one is it?

>>34217
It is still an ad hominem. You're making an argument about the validity of his historiography based on an argument about the nature of his person. It is still fallacious.

>>34214
Do a search on "whig history."

>>34318
Why don't you try to show he is in fact a white supremacist?

>>34283
>I can't stand niggers and wish they all day, except for the 20 or so that I respect and am friends with
Yours is not an argument for anything

Anybody read his biography of Kissinger or on the Rothschilds?

>>34283
>I've stuck my dick in a black woman's vagina but she isn't my slave
>I have a mixed race baby with her
>I've defended the British empire on the basis of the good it did for black and brown people all over the world
>I support free immigration so black and brown people can come into the west, as long as they assimilate
Yes, he's a racist all right

>>34366
Because that isn't my argument. See the previous posts in this thread where I make my argument.

>>34574

Fucking this, the delusion that /lit/ has is dumbfounding.

>>34622
So why do you care? And how are your studies going?

>>34772
Because he personifies the worst aspects of technoscience's abuse of the discipline. And ask me on the channel if you actually care.