Doom: The Politics of Catastrophe

Niall Ferguson examines why modern societies are increasingly ill-prepared for disasters in "Doom." Despite advances in science and technology, responses to crises like the COVID-19 pandemic have been flawed and inconsistent. Ferguson traces these failures to deeper systemic issues such as bureaucratic complexity and political fragmentation. Drawing on history, economics, and network science, he offers a general theory of disasters and warns of the dangers of growing institutional sclerosis. This urgent work calls for learning from past mistakes to better face future catastrophes and avoid irreversible decline.