— Niall Ferguson, UK-born Harvard University professor, in Newsweek on Feb 27
Did Niall Ferguson, the renowned pundit, columnist and TV talking head, really write that very last line?
Or did some low-ranking editor at Newsweek add it to his article at the last minute, perhaps without even asking Ferguson?
I ask because it’s hard to imagine an educated individual such as Ferguson enlisting the ‘ghost of Napoleon’ in this clumsy way.
Using Napoleon to try to scare American readers into accepting his foreign policy prescriptions seems almost comical, when Americans know that Napoleon never made war against the US, and through his role in the Louisiana Purchase even made a contribution to America’s westward expansion and future greatness.
(If Americans are going to be seeing ghosts these days, it might be the shade of Alexander Hamilton, lamenting that his work as First US Treasury Secretary to build up the US economy seems to have been forgotten by his successors. But that’s another story.)
Maybe this kind of historical allusion to Napoleon works better in Ferguson’s native Scotland, or in Europe, but it’s hard to see how it would resonate much with an American audience. I think Napoleon scares Americans in 2011 about as much as Genghis Khan, Julius Caesar or Ivan the Terrible – that is, not very much at all.
Whether he actually wrote that line or not, the ambitious Ferguson is going to have to do better than conjuring up Napoleon’s ghost, if he wants to exercise the sort of influential role in US policymaking that he so obviously craves.
But he’ll have to first learn more about how to blend in with his intended audience.
Perhaps Ferguson might recall what his fellow historian, Byron Farwell, wrote about the Victorian-age British adventurers who fanned out across the globe, serving as military advisors to local rulers: “Britons did not hesitate to exchange their bowlers for turbans, tarbushes or mandarin caps if only they were given men whom they could lead into battle.”
That is, these adventurers carefully assimilated local customs before making suggestions to the natives about who to fight and when to fight them. (I guess this means Ferguson ought to get fitted ASAP for a Stetson hat.)
Given the general tone of his output, Ferguson is definitely in the tradition identified by Farwell, even if he doesn’t strut around in a Victorian-style pith helmet.
To aid in his assimilation, I suggest that Ferguson ought to study the implications of an Americanism that has become known as the motto of the great state of Missouri – “You’ll have to show me.”
On foreign policy questions, most Americans have always been from Missouri (right back to Washington’s Farewell Address and its line about “entangling alliances.”).
To win Americans over to the idea of intervening more vigorously in the Middle East and North Africa, to get their backing for yet another foreign war, you’ll have to show them something more compelling than Napoleon’s ghost, Mr. Ferguson.
