When US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger asked Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai in 1971 what he thought of the effects of the French Revolution, Enlai replied that it was too early to judge. The British-American historian Niall Ferguson opens his current world history of catastrophes with this anecdote about the supposed staying power of the Asian view of history. In it, he would like to draw conclusions for dealing with the current corona pandemic from human experience of earthquakes, epidemics, major fires, wars and famines and even nuclear accidents.
Niall Ferguson’s non-fiction book Doom – Culture
