Latest Niall Ferguson Quotes from Interviews

Quotes about:

• Collaboration is risky. If it fails, if the occupation is wound up prematurely and the bad guys come back to power, you might find yourself in some serious trouble.

  Niall Ferguson

  Guy, Finding Yourself, Collaboration

  "Imperial Denial". Interview with Nonna Gorilovskaya, www.motherjones.com. May 21, 2004.

• I think the condition of imperial denial is a handicap because if you do not recognize that you are essentially performing the functions of an empire, you are incapable of learning from the mistakes of past empires.

  Niall Ferguson

  Mistake, Past, Thinking

  "Imperial Denial". Interview with Nonna Gorilovskaya, www.motherjones.com. May 21, 2004.

• You really struggle to be a successful empire if you are also the world's biggest debtor.

  Niall Ferguson

  Struggle, Successful, Debtors

  "Imperial Denial". Interview with Nonna Gorilovskaya, www.motherjones.com. May 21, 2004.

• All empires have depended on local legitimacy and local collaboration; they are not based primarily on coercion. An imperial rule that relies wholly on coercion can't endure. It's too expensive.

  Niall Ferguson

  Collaboration, Coercion, Empires

  "Imperial Denial". Interview with Nonna Gorilovskaya, www.motherjones.com. May 21, 2004.

• If young men have jobs - or the prospects of jobs - they are less likely to take up arms, they are less likely to join the resistance.

  Niall Ferguson

  Jobs, Men, Arms

  "Imperial Denial". Interview with Nonna Gorilovskaya, www.motherjones.com. May 21, 2004.

• Empires, essentially, create order. In their absence, you don't end up with lots of happy, little nation-states full of people sitting around campfires singing John Lennon's "Imagine." What you end up with is civil war, anarchy.

  Niall Ferguson

  War, Order, People

  "Imperial Denial". Interview with Nonna Gorilovkskaya, www.motherjones.com. May 21, 2004.

• My arguments for liberal empire or whatever you want to call it - hegemony, primacy, you name it - are really activated by a sense that the alternatives involve more violence, more repression, more hardship.

  Niall Ferguson

  Names, Hegemony, Alternatives

  "Imperial Denial". Interview with Nonna Gorilovskaya, www.motherjones.com. May 21, 2004.