The Square and the Tower

Niall Ferguson argues that most history is written from the top down, perhaps because hierarchies produce the archives historians rely on, which leaves informal social networks underrated as sources of power and change. Networks, he says, are not new to the 21st century: power has often sat in the town square below rather than in the tower above, and networks are where ideas spread and innovation tends to happen. He uses concepts from network theory, including clustering, weak ties, degrees of separation, contagion and phase transitions, to retell episodes from the cults of ancient Rome and Renaissance dynasties to the Freemasons, the American founders and Facebook. Historian Peter Frankopan called the book provocative in The Daily Telegraph.

Eric Schmidt endorsed it, writing as a software engineer steeped in network theory that its insights impressed him and that Silicon Valley needed the history lesson Ferguson provides.