Book Review

The Square and the Tower: Networks and Power, from the Freemasons to Facebook

Abstract

The book, The Square and the Tower: Networks and Power, from the Freemasons to Facebook, published recently and was written by Niall Ferguson in 2018. It is important to emphasize here that Professor Ferguson is a financial historian, having interest in British and North American economic history, and has carried out numerous book projects in these fields. The basic idea that Ferguson focused on while writing this work is the claim that the world is shaped by two different organizational structures i.e. traditional top-down principles of governing and social networks. This distinction can often seem like a classification that is not sufficiently large; ultimately, most networks are hierarchical and interrelated. Based on this basic claim, Ferguson reconsiders the idea that “History” or “Historical Events” are events that develop around rulers. Thus, he reconsiders in this book, his work that social networks have designed all real relationships in society and that they are in an endless struggle with the traditional top-down hierarchical order. As a matter of fact, in the introduction, after describing networks and hierarchies in general, he emphasises the interaction of networks with each other and hierarchical structures.