The Square and the Tower

Title: The Square and the Tower – Networks, Hierarchies and the Struggle for Global Power

Author: Niall Ferguson

Publisher: Allen Lane, 2017 (First)

ISBN: 9780241298985

Pages: 574

The social structures that we see around us today are the result of incessant interactions between human beings. When people interact with each other, some etiquette is required to be maintained. The inter-personal relationships in an organization can be hard or soft as demanded by the purpose for which the people have joined it. These associations between people can be broadly classified into two – networks and hierarchies. Being a member of a network gives influence to an affiliate while a hierarchy imparts power to its constituents. If you ‘report’ to someone, you are in a hierarchy. From the very beginnings of civilizations, networks and hierarchies exerted their push and pull on the way history flowed. This book tells the story of the interaction between networks and hierarchies from ancient times until the very recent past. Niall Ferguson is a British historian and commentator, and is currently a senior research fellow at Jesus College, Oxford. He is known for his provocative, contrarian views. Many of Ferguson’s books have been reviewed here earlier. In 2004, he was named as one of the 100 most influential people in the world by Time magazine.

Networks and hierarchies enjoyed a commingled role in shaping events that turned the wheels of world history. The recurrent and near universal problem of ancient history was that the citizens of warring states generally ceded excessive powers to hereditary warrior elites whose function it was to inculcate religious doctrines and other legitimizing ideas. At times, the hierarchy was essential to move forward out of a vexing problem or simply to survive. Ferguson credits the invention of the printing press as the most influential single event that altered the course of history. Printing helped to unleash the huge political and religious disruption of the Reformation. Gutenberg’s movable type technology came around 1450 CE. This revolutionized the way information reached people, helping to establish countless networks in every sphere of human activity. Without Gutenberg, Luther might well have become just another heretic whom the Church burned at the stake. With the advent of cheap paper, more of the populace joined intellectual discourses of the era. Cities with at least one printing press in 1500 CE were significantly more likely to adopt Protestantism than cities without printing. This new technology also helped the scientific revolution and Enlightenment. After Luther’s Reformation, Protestant states began to show signs of greater economic dynamism. Re-allocation of resources from ecclesiastical to secular activities loosened the reins held by the clergy. Two-thirds of all monasteries were closed in Protestant territories of Germany. Their land and other assets were appropriated by secular rulers and sold to wealthy subjects. It was how the Reformation, in itself a religious movement, contributed to Europe’s secularization.

Popular fiction is rife with conspiracy theories and secret societies. ‘Illuminati’ is at the centre stage of Dan Brown’s immensely popular thriller ‘Angels and Demons’. We are surprised to learn that a society of that name indeed existed in Europe before the French revolution. Another favourite gang of best sellers are the Freemasons, whose members are said to have been administering all major governments and organizations in the world. Freemasonry furnished the Age of Reason with a powerful mythology, an international organization structure and an elaborate ritual calculated to bind initiates together as metaphorical brothers. Freemasons participated in America’s revolutionary war, but it is not correct to assign it the credit of victory.

A major portion of the book is dedicated to networks and hierarchies that dominated the political arena in the twentieth century such as communism, fascism, Nazism, Islamism and others. The author presents some new ideas on German wartime strategy during World War 1. They fanned Islamic fundamentalism to cause internal strife in British colonies such as India which were at war with Germany. This aspect requires more study for students of the Indian independence movement. Unlike in the Second, Indians wholeheartedly sided with Britain in the First World War without making any preconditions on self-rule. Indian troops served exemplarily in the War. Even then, disturbances were breaking out in many parts of India. The downfall of the Ottoman sultan infuriated radical Muslims who viewed the sultan as the Leader of the Faithful. Incitement from Germans made rebels out of the Muslims and young revolutionaries like the Gadar movement. The spiral of violence gained strength by each passing day and went out of control at JallianwalaBagh. Ferguson sets aside a chapter that narrates the strategic German actions in India and the Middle East to foment jihadism. I haven’t come across any other book that deals with the post-World War 1 insurrections in India and the role Germany played in it.

A shocking revelation given in the book is the support extended by Kaiser's Germany to elevate Lenin as the ruler of Russia by usurping Tsar Nicholas II who was locked in a war with them in World War 1. Lenin was exiled by the Tsarist regime earlier and was residing quietly in Switzerland. Germany transferred 50 million gold marks ($800 million in today's money) to Lenin and his associates - much of it laundered through a Russian import business run by a woman named Evgeniya Sumenson. Kerensky's provisional government in Russia was too lenient and not competent enough to tackle the Red menace. Had he imprisoned Lenin and his comrades the moment they arrived in Russian soil, the famed October Revolution would've been stillborn. Lenin and Stalin didn't repeat Kerensky's mistakes though. The large-scale repressive state organs they instituted spied on the Russian people and punished them harshly for even the smallest misdemeanors. It is estimated that if we include the exiled people into reckoning, the share of the population who experienced some kind of penal servitude under Stalin approached 15 per cent of the total. The Bolshevik Revolution was hence a successful German plot to subvert Russia that came to haunt them and prove to be their nemesis in the Second World War. Such hidden truths are hard to come by in today's society dominated by the so called 'Left-leaning Liberals'.

The book is rather very big, but a sense of pointlessness pervades it all. Of course, man is a social animal and social networks stay solidly behind any collective activity. In that sense, a history or commentary of such associations is by definition a history of mankind itself. The author introduces some new concepts such as betweenness centrality which finds significance in network analysis. He had included numerous network diagrams with multiple nodes, which are mostly unreadable and unappealing. Recent coverage in the book includes growth of the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq which follows a loosely interconnected network strategy rather than the top-down hierarchy of bin Laden's al-Qaeda.

The book is highly recommended.

Rating: 3 Star