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The Great Degeneration
- Narrated by: Paul Slack
- Length: 4 hrs and 16 mins
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The Great Degeneration
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Summary
Symptoms of decline are all around us today, it seems: slowing growth, crushing debts, aging populations, anti-social behaviour. But what exactly is amiss with Western civilization? The answer, Niall Ferguson argues, is that our institutions - the intricate frameworks within which a society can flourish or fail - are degenerating. To arrest the degeneration of the West's civilization, Ferguson warns, will take heroic leadership and radical reform.
The Great Degeneration is the latest, provocative work from Niall Ferguson, best-selling author of The Ascent of Money.
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance1 out of 5 stars
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Story3 out of 5 stars
- Judy Corstjens
- 09-05-15
Buy the hard copy
I bought this following on from (the brilliant) Ascent of Money, and was a bit disappointed. It is so brief that I felt useful details had been left out, and yet I also felt it was quite hard to follow as an audiobook. Ferguson follows the 'institutional' paradigm of successful societies, and refers repeatedly to 'Why Nations Fail' by Acemoglu and Robinson. In a sense this book is an appendix to theirs (explaining why our societies are poised for failure) and I'd recommend the first one, if you haven't read/audioed it, and then try applying their criteria for success to your own society.
Maybe the worst thing was the tone of the narration. Paul Slack reads in a 'Jeremy Clarkson sarcasm' voice throughout, which made me feel that the degeneration of the legal system and collapse of civil society was my own, personal, fault.
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10 people found this helpful
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Gareth
- 14-10-15
Worth a listen
good listen and an interesting critique of modern institutions - to an extent it is a thorough PEST style analysis but has some interesting insights. Very libertarian and pro free market, which I mostly agree with, but this occasionally seems like a Ron Paul type libertarianism - though arguments are well reasoned and compelling
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall2 out of 5 stars
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Performance2 out of 5 stars
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Story2 out of 5 stars
- Charlie
- 13-11-17
Do not Buy!!
I regret spending the money on this, as it was a waste. All the content here is the same as Ferguson’s Reith lectures ‘The Rule of Law and its enemies’, which you can listen to for free on the BBC website.
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6 people found this helpful