Having met Niall and having read his books, he is defenitely one to two sigma to the "right". Some of his views are a bit "interesting" hence I suspect there is some truth in Mishra views on Niall's book :) My two cents worth
PS:- I am no historian, nearest to what I am qualified is a doctor then a security bod/cryptographer :) Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device -----Original Message----- From: Chew Lin Kay <chewlin....@gmail.com> Sender: silklist-bounces+anish.mohammed=gmail....@lists.hserus.net Date: Tue, 15 Nov 2011 09:15:07 To: silklist<silklist@lists.hserus.net> Reply-To: silklist@lists.hserus.net Subject: [silk] Niall Ferguson v Pankaj Mishra: battle of the historians Link to Mishra's review of Ferguson's latest book here: http://www.lrb.co.uk/v33/n21/pankaj-mishra/watch-this-man http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/nov/14/niall-ferguson-pankaj-mishra Niall Ferguson v Pankaj Mishra: battle of the historians The two academics are having a spat. Is it time for them to step outside and settle it once and for all? - [image: Patrick Barkham]<http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/patrickbarkham> - - Patrick Barkham <http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/patrickbarkham> - guardian.co.uk <http://www.guardian.co.uk/>, Monday 14 November 2011 20.00 GMT - larger <http://www.guardian.co.uk/help/accessibility> | smaller<http://www.guardian.co.uk/help/accessibility> [image: Mishra v Ferguson] It's Mishra v Ferguson Photograph: Corbis; Christian Sinibalde It is shaping up to be the tastiest historical scrap since Rob Newman's comedy professor character compared the girlfriend of David Baddiel's don to Peter Beardsley. The warring academics, beloved of 1990s students for their "that's you, that is <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UMedd03JCA>" repartee, have made way for Niall Ferguson<http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/niall-ferguson> and Pankaj Mishra, after the latter likened Ferguson to Tom Buchanan in the Great Gatsby. As with all the best academic spats, spectators are advised to equip themselves with a dictionary and a history<http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/history> degree to follow the action. Mishra, the Indian author and essayist, argued in the London Review of Books<http://www.lrb.co.uk/v33/n21/pankaj-mishra/watch-this-man> that Ferguson was "homo atlanticus redux", a "retailer of emollient tales about the glorious past" whose books "are known less for their original scholarly contribution than for containing some provocative counterfactuals". Summing up Ferguson's latest tome, Civilisation: The West and the Rest, as "gallimaufry", Mishra accused the TV historian and Harvard scholar of ignoring facts that complicate his narrative of Western dominance, such as Muslim contributions to science. Ferguson's acknowledgment of colonial misdeeds was "very selective" and he was "immune ... to humour and irony". Ferguson responded with a letter to the "notoriously left-leaning" coterie at the LRB, raging that Mishra's critique was "a crude attempt at character assassination" <http://www.lrb.co.uk/v33/n21/pankaj-mishra/watch-this-man> that "mendaciously misrepresents my work but also strongly implies that I am a racist". Mishra, huffed Ferguson, "owes me a public apology" for his "libellous and dishonest article". It briefly looked as if Mishra would pour cold water on the flames. "Ferguson is no racist," he responded, before laying into his "pathological" instinct to "bow down before the conqueror of the moment" and tendency to say "whatever seems resonant and persuasive at any given hour". Time to settle this in court/the playground/outside? - © 2011 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved.
