> > When I've had occasion to look at Ferguson's forays into economics, > they seem almost embarrassingly incompetent. He has a truly > impressive ego and a lack of understanding to match. >
Mishra's cold response to Ferguson's complaint about being misunderstood is perfectly accurate in relation to this: his work exhibits the crudest possible pandering to the conqueror of the moment. Indeed, his whole career as a professional Scotsman-turned-Americophile appears to illustrate this. To be fair, though, I haven't ever heard him call himself an economist. Is that something Americans hear a lot from him? I heard him speak several times at the Jaipur festival last year (to my displeasure, I found him a charming and supremely entertaining talking head) and calling him an historian of economics would be more accurate. Of course, he has had plenty of opportunity to get things wrong there as well. \ Mishra is no economist either, but it was pretty easy for him to pick holes in Ferguson's fond belief that colonisation was a force for good for its subject countries. It's a pity the LRB even wasted so much ink on him, but it was past time for someone to take him down a peg or two in a popular forum. > Most economists would say about the same -- Paul Krugman has a > notoriously low regard for Ferguson, and J. Bradford DeLong of > Berkeley famously observed that "Niall Ferguson does indeed know a > lot less than economists knew in the 1920s". > > Though I wouldn't begin to pass direct judgment on Ferguson as a > historian -- that's just a collateral field for me -- I would find > it very easy to believe that Mishra's criticisms of Ferguson's work > are richly deserved. > > And by the way, I find it intensely annoying when any scholar > attempts to deflect criticism by immediately attacking the politics > of their opponent. I haven't noticed truth to be the the sole > province of academics on the right or the left, and sometimes > incompetent work is just, well, incompetent work. > > Cheers, B. > > > > > >
