Christy Lefteri in conversation with Sue Nyathi about Songbirds.
The powerful new novel from the bestselling author of global bestseller The Beekeeper of Aleppo, Songbirds, is a heart-breaking story for our times.
She walks unseen through our world. Cares for our children, cleans our homes. Her voice unheard.
She has a story to tell. Will you listen?
Nisha has crossed oceans to give her child a future. By day she cares for Petra’s daughter, Aliki; at night she mothers her own in Sri Lanka by the light of a phone.
Nisha’s lover is Yiannis, a poacher, who hunts the tiny songbirds as they migrate to Cyprus on their way to Africa each winter. He dreams of finding a new way of life, of marrying Nisha.
When Nisha disappears, little Aliki insists she wouldn’t simply run away; they must find her. As Petra learns to take care of Aliki herself, she comes to understand the woman she barely knew, and realises only she and Yiannis will bother to look for her. What they uncover will change them all.
Set on her native Cyprus, Christy Lefteri has crafted a powerful, redemptive story of loss, of the triumph of the human spirit, and of the enduring love of a mother for her child.
Niall Ferguson is one of Britain’s most renowned historians. He is a Laurence A. Tisch Professor of History at Harvard University, a Senior Research Fellow of Jesus College, Oxford University, and a Senior Fellow of the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and bestselling author of Paper and Iron, The House of Rothschild, The Pity of War, The Cash Nexus, Empire and Colossus
A provocative, original and compelling history of catastrophes and their consequences
Disasters are by their very nature hard to predict. Pandemics, like earthquakes, wildfires, financial crises and wars, are not normally distributed; there is no cycle of history to help us anticipate the next catastrophe. But when disaster strikes, we ought to be better prepared than the Romans were when Vesuvius erupted or medieval Italians when the Black Death struck. We have science on our side, after all. Yet the responses of a number of developed countries to a new pathogen from China were badly bungled. Why?
The facile answer is to blame poor leadership. While populist rulers have certainly performed poorly in the face of the pandemic, more profund problems have been exposed by COVID-19. Only when we understand the central challenge posed by disaster in history can we see that this was also a failure of an administrative state and of economic elites that had grown myopic over much longer than just a few years. Why were so many Cassandras for so long ignored? Why did only some countries learn the right lessons from SARS and MERS? Why do appeals to ‘the science’ often turn out to be mere magical thinking?
Drawing from multiple disciplines, including history, economics and network science, Doom: The Politics of Catastrophe is a global post mortem for a plague year. Drawing on preoccupations that have shaped his books for some twenty years, Niall Ferguson describes the pathologies that have done us so much damage: from imperial hubris to bureaucratic sclerosis and online schism. COVID-19 was a test failed by countries who must learn some serious lessons from history if they are to avoid the doom of irreversible decline.
free of charge to receive the virtual link for the event.
In 1994, 16-year-old Emmanuel Taban walked out of war-torn Sudan with nothing and nowhere to go after he had been tortured at the hands of government forces, who falsely accused him of spying for the rebels. When he finally managed to escape, he literally took a wrong turn and, instead of being reunited with his family, ended up in neighbouring Eritrea as a refugee.
Over the months that followed, young Emmanuel went on a harrowing journey, often spending weeks on the streets and facing many dangers. Relying on the generosity of strangers, he made the long journey south to South Africa, via Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, Mozambique and Zimbabwe, travelling mostly by bus and on foot.
When he reached Johannesburg, 18 months after fleeing Sudan, he was determined to resume his education. He managed to complete his schooling with the help of Catholic missionaries and entered medical school, qualifying as a doctor, and eventually specialising in pulmonology.
Emmanuel’s skill and dedication as a physician, and his stubborn refusal to be discouraged by setbacks, led to an important discovery in the treatment of hypoxaemic COVID-19 patients. By never giving up, this son of Sudan has risen above extreme poverty, racism and xenophobia to become a South African legend. This is his story.
Christy Lefteri in conversation with Sue Nyathi about Songbirds.
The powerful new novel from the bestselling author of global bestseller The Beekeeper of Aleppo, Songbirds, is a heart-breaking story for our times.
She walks unseen through our world. Cares for our children, cleans our homes. Her voice unheard.
She has a story to tell. Will you listen?
Nisha has crossed oceans to give her child a future. By day she cares for Petra’s daughter, Aliki; at night she mothers her own in Sri Lanka by the light of a phone.
Nisha’s lover is Yiannis, a poacher, who hunts the tiny songbirds as they migrate to Cyprus on their way to Africa each winter. He dreams of finding a new way of life, of marrying Nisha.
When Nisha disappears, little Aliki insists she wouldn’t simply run away; they must find her. As Petra learns to take care of Aliki herself, she comes to understand the woman she barely knew, and realises only she and Yiannis will bother to look for her. What they uncover will change them all.
Set on her native Cyprus, Christy Lefteri has crafted a powerful, redemptive story of loss, of the triumph of the human spirit, and of the enduring love of a mother for her child.
Niall Ferguson is one of Britain’s most renowned historians. He is a Laurence A. Tisch Professor of History at Harvard University, a Senior Research Fellow of Jesus College, Oxford University, and a Senior Fellow of the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and bestselling author of Paper and Iron, The House of Rothschild, The Pity of War, The Cash Nexus, Empire and Colossus
A provocative, original and compelling history of catastrophes and their consequences
Disasters are by their very nature hard to predict. Pandemics, like earthquakes, wildfires, financial crises and wars, are not normally distributed; there is no cycle of history to help us anticipate the next catastrophe. But when disaster strikes, we ought to be better prepared than the Romans were when Vesuvius erupted or medieval Italians when the Black Death struck. We have science on our side, after all. Yet the responses of a number of developed countries to a new pathogen from China were badly bungled. Why?
The facile answer is to blame poor leadership. While populist rulers have certainly performed poorly in the face of the pandemic, more profund problems have been exposed by COVID-19. Only when we understand the central challenge posed by disaster in history can we see that this was also a failure of an administrative state and of economic elites that had grown myopic over much longer than just a few years. Why were so many Cassandras for so long ignored? Why did only some countries learn the right lessons from SARS and MERS? Why do appeals to ‘the science’ often turn out to be mere magical thinking?
Drawing from multiple disciplines, including history, economics and network science, Doom: The Politics of Catastrophe is a global post mortem for a plague year. Drawing on preoccupations that have shaped his books for some twenty years, Niall Ferguson describes the pathologies that have done us so much damage: from imperial hubris to bureaucratic sclerosis and online schism. COVID-19 was a test failed by countries who must learn some serious lessons from history if they are to avoid the doom of irreversible decline.
free of charge to receive the virtual link for the event.
In 1994, 16-year-old Emmanuel Taban walked out of war-torn Sudan with nothing and nowhere to go after he had been tortured at the hands of government forces, who falsely accused him of spying for the rebels. When he finally managed to escape, he literally took a wrong turn and, instead of being reunited with his family, ended up in neighbouring Eritrea as a refugee.
Over the months that followed, young Emmanuel went on a harrowing journey, often spending weeks on the streets and facing many dangers. Relying on the generosity of strangers, he made the long journey south to South Africa, via Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, Mozambique and Zimbabwe, travelling mostly by bus and on foot.
When he reached Johannesburg, 18 months after fleeing Sudan, he was determined to resume his education. He managed to complete his schooling with the help of Catholic missionaries and entered medical school, qualifying as a doctor, and eventually specialising in pulmonology.
Emmanuel’s skill and dedication as a physician, and his stubborn refusal to be discouraged by setbacks, led to an important discovery in the treatment of hypoxaemic COVID-19 patients. By never giving up, this son of Sudan has risen above extreme poverty, racism and xenophobia to become a South African legend. This is his story.
Christy Lefteri in conversation with Sue Nyathi about Songbirds.
The powerful new novel from the bestselling author of global bestseller The Beekeeper of Aleppo, Songbirds, is a heart-breaking story for our times.
She walks unseen through our world. Cares for our children, cleans our homes. Her voice unheard.
She has a story to tell. Will you listen?
Nisha has crossed oceans to give her child a future. By day she cares for Petra’s daughter, Aliki; at night she mothers her own in Sri Lanka by the light of a phone.
Nisha’s lover is Yiannis, a poacher, who hunts the tiny songbirds as they migrate to Cyprus on their way to Africa each winter. He dreams of finding a new way of life, of marrying Nisha.
When Nisha disappears, little Aliki insists she wouldn’t simply run away; they must find her. As Petra learns to take care of Aliki herself, she comes to understand the woman she barely knew, and realises only she and Yiannis will bother to look for her. What they uncover will change them all.
Set on her native Cyprus, Christy Lefteri has crafted a powerful, redemptive story of loss, of the triumph of the human spirit, and of the enduring love of a mother for her child.
Niall Ferguson is one of Britain’s most renowned historians. He is a Laurence A. Tisch Professor of History at Harvard University, a Senior Research Fellow of Jesus College, Oxford University, and a Senior Fellow of the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and bestselling author of Paper and Iron, The House of Rothschild, The Pity of War, The Cash Nexus, Empire and Colossus
A provocative, original and compelling history of catastrophes and their consequences
Disasters are by their very nature hard to predict. Pandemics, like earthquakes, wildfires, financial crises and wars, are not normally distributed; there is no cycle of history to help us anticipate the next catastrophe. But when disaster strikes, we ought to be better prepared than the Romans were when Vesuvius erupted or medieval Italians when the Black Death struck. We have science on our side, after all. Yet the responses of a number of developed countries to a new pathogen from China were badly bungled. Why?
The facile answer is to blame poor leadership. While populist rulers have certainly performed poorly in the face of the pandemic, more profund problems have been exposed by COVID-19. Only when we understand the central challenge posed by disaster in history can we see that this was also a failure of an administrative state and of economic elites that had grown myopic over much longer than just a few years. Why were so many Cassandras for so long ignored? Why did only some countries learn the right lessons from SARS and MERS? Why do appeals to ‘the science’ often turn out to be mere magical thinking?
Drawing from multiple disciplines, including history, economics and network science, Doom: The Politics of Catastrophe is a global post mortem for a plague year. Drawing on preoccupations that have shaped his books for some twenty years, Niall Ferguson describes the pathologies that have done us so much damage: from imperial hubris to bureaucratic sclerosis and online schism. COVID-19 was a test failed by countries who must learn some serious lessons from history if they are to avoid the doom of irreversible decline.
free of charge to receive the virtual link for the event.
In 1994, 16-year-old Emmanuel Taban walked out of war-torn Sudan with nothing and nowhere to go after he had been tortured at the hands of government forces, who falsely accused him of spying for the rebels. When he finally managed to escape, he literally took a wrong turn and, instead of being reunited with his family, ended up in neighbouring Eritrea as a refugee.
Over the months that followed, young Emmanuel went on a harrowing journey, often spending weeks on the streets and facing many dangers. Relying on the generosity of strangers, he made the long journey south to South Africa, via Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, Mozambique and Zimbabwe, travelling mostly by bus and on foot.
When he reached Johannesburg, 18 months after fleeing Sudan, he was determined to resume his education. He managed to complete his schooling with the help of Catholic missionaries and entered medical school, qualifying as a doctor, and eventually specialising in pulmonology.
Emmanuel’s skill and dedication as a physician, and his stubborn refusal to be discouraged by setbacks, led to an important discovery in the treatment of hypoxaemic COVID-19 patients. By never giving up, this son of Sudan has risen above extreme poverty, racism and xenophobia to become a South African legend. This is his story.
Christy Lefteri in conversation with Sue Nyathi about Songbirds.
The powerful new novel from the bestselling author of global bestseller The Beekeeper of Aleppo, Songbirds, is a heart-breaking story for our times.
She walks unseen through our world. Cares for our children, cleans our homes. Her voice unheard.
She has a story to tell. Will you listen?
Nisha has crossed oceans to give her child a future. By day she cares for Petra’s daughter, Aliki; at night she mothers her own in Sri Lanka by the light of a phone.
Nisha’s lover is Yiannis, a poacher, who hunts the tiny songbirds as they migrate to Cyprus on their way to Africa each winter. He dreams of finding a new way of life, of marrying Nisha.
When Nisha disappears, little Aliki insists she wouldn’t simply run away; they must find her. As Petra learns to take care of Aliki herself, she comes to understand the woman she barely knew, and realises only she and Yiannis will bother to look for her. What they uncover will change them all.
Set on her native Cyprus, Christy Lefteri has crafted a powerful, redemptive story of loss, of the triumph of the human spirit, and of the enduring love of a mother for her child.
Niall Ferguson is one of Britain’s most renowned historians. He is a Laurence A. Tisch Professor of History at Harvard University, a Senior Research Fellow of Jesus College, Oxford University, and a Senior Fellow of the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and bestselling author of Paper and Iron, The House of Rothschild, The Pity of War, The Cash Nexus, Empire and Colossus
A provocative, original and compelling history of catastrophes and their consequences
Disasters are by their very nature hard to predict. Pandemics, like earthquakes, wildfires, financial crises and wars, are not normally distributed; there is no cycle of history to help us anticipate the next catastrophe. But when disaster strikes, we ought to be better prepared than the Romans were when Vesuvius erupted or medieval Italians when the Black Death struck. We have science on our side, after all. Yet the responses of a number of developed countries to a new pathogen from China were badly bungled. Why?
The facile answer is to blame poor leadership. While populist rulers have certainly performed poorly in the face of the pandemic, more profund problems have been exposed by COVID-19. Only when we understand the central challenge posed by disaster in history can we see that this was also a failure of an administrative state and of economic elites that had grown myopic over much longer than just a few years. Why were so many Cassandras for so long ignored? Why did only some countries learn the right lessons from SARS and MERS? Why do appeals to ‘the science’ often turn out to be mere magical thinking?
Drawing from multiple disciplines, including history, economics and network science, Doom: The Politics of Catastrophe is a global post mortem for a plague year. Drawing on preoccupations that have shaped his books for some twenty years, Niall Ferguson describes the pathologies that have done us so much damage: from imperial hubris to bureaucratic sclerosis and online schism. COVID-19 was a test failed by countries who must learn some serious lessons from history if they are to avoid the doom of irreversible decline.
free of charge to receive the virtual link for the event.
In 1994, 16-year-old Emmanuel Taban walked out of war-torn Sudan with nothing and nowhere to go after he had been tortured at the hands of government forces, who falsely accused him of spying for the rebels. When he finally managed to escape, he literally took a wrong turn and, instead of being reunited with his family, ended up in neighbouring Eritrea as a refugee.
Over the months that followed, young Emmanuel went on a harrowing journey, often spending weeks on the streets and facing many dangers. Relying on the generosity of strangers, he made the long journey south to South Africa, via Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, Mozambique and Zimbabwe, travelling mostly by bus and on foot.
When he reached Johannesburg, 18 months after fleeing Sudan, he was determined to resume his education. He managed to complete his schooling with the help of Catholic missionaries and entered medical school, qualifying as a doctor, and eventually specialising in pulmonology.
Emmanuel’s skill and dedication as a physician, and his stubborn refusal to be discouraged by setbacks, led to an important discovery in the treatment of hypoxaemic COVID-19 patients. By never giving up, this son of Sudan has risen above extreme poverty, racism and xenophobia to become a South African legend. This is his story.
Christy Lefteri in conversation with Sue Nyathi about Songbirds.
The powerful new novel from the bestselling author of global bestseller The Beekeeper of Aleppo, Songbirds, is a heart-breaking story for our times.
She walks unseen through our world. Cares for our children, cleans our homes. Her voice unheard.
She has a story to tell. Will you listen?
Nisha has crossed oceans to give her child a future. By day she cares for Petra’s daughter, Aliki; at night she mothers her own in Sri Lanka by the light of a phone.
Nisha’s lover is Yiannis, a poacher, who hunts the tiny songbirds as they migrate to Cyprus on their way to Africa each winter. He dreams of finding a new way of life, of marrying Nisha.
When Nisha disappears, little Aliki insists she wouldn’t simply run away; they must find her. As Petra learns to take care of Aliki herself, she comes to understand the woman she barely knew, and realises only she and Yiannis will bother to look for her. What they uncover will change them all.
Set on her native Cyprus, Christy Lefteri has crafted a powerful, redemptive story of loss, of the triumph of the human spirit, and of the enduring love of a mother for her child.
Niall Ferguson is one of Britain’s most renowned historians. He is a Laurence A. Tisch Professor of History at Harvard University, a Senior Research Fellow of Jesus College, Oxford University, and a Senior Fellow of the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and bestselling author of Paper and Iron, The House of Rothschild, The Pity of War, The Cash Nexus, Empire and Colossus
A provocative, original and compelling history of catastrophes and their consequences
Disasters are by their very nature hard to predict. Pandemics, like earthquakes, wildfires, financial crises and wars, are not normally distributed; there is no cycle of history to help us anticipate the next catastrophe. But when disaster strikes, we ought to be better prepared than the Romans were when Vesuvius erupted or medieval Italians when the Black Death struck. We have science on our side, after all. Yet the responses of a number of developed countries to a new pathogen from China were badly bungled. Why?
The facile answer is to blame poor leadership. While populist rulers have certainly performed poorly in the face of the pandemic, more profund problems have been exposed by COVID-19. Only when we understand the central challenge posed by disaster in history can we see that this was also a failure of an administrative state and of economic elites that had grown myopic over much longer than just a few years. Why were so many Cassandras for so long ignored? Why did only some countries learn the right lessons from SARS and MERS? Why do appeals to ‘the science’ often turn out to be mere magical thinking?
Drawing from multiple disciplines, including history, economics and network science, Doom: The Politics of Catastrophe is a global post mortem for a plague year. Drawing on preoccupations that have shaped his books for some twenty years, Niall Ferguson describes the pathologies that have done us so much damage: from imperial hubris to bureaucratic sclerosis and online schism. COVID-19 was a test failed by countries who must learn some serious lessons from history if they are to avoid the doom of irreversible decline.
free of charge to receive the virtual link for the event.
In 1994, 16-year-old Emmanuel Taban walked out of war-torn Sudan with nothing and nowhere to go after he had been tortured at the hands of government forces, who falsely accused him of spying for the rebels. When he finally managed to escape, he literally took a wrong turn and, instead of being reunited with his family, ended up in neighbouring Eritrea as a refugee.
Over the months that followed, young Emmanuel went on a harrowing journey, often spending weeks on the streets and facing many dangers. Relying on the generosity of strangers, he made the long journey south to South Africa, via Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, Mozambique and Zimbabwe, travelling mostly by bus and on foot.
When he reached Johannesburg, 18 months after fleeing Sudan, he was determined to resume his education. He managed to complete his schooling with the help of Catholic missionaries and entered medical school, qualifying as a doctor, and eventually specialising in pulmonology.
Emmanuel’s skill and dedication as a physician, and his stubborn refusal to be discouraged by setbacks, led to an important discovery in the treatment of hypoxaemic COVID-19 patients. By never giving up, this son of Sudan has risen above extreme poverty, racism and xenophobia to become a South African legend. This is his story.
Christy Lefteri in conversation with Sue Nyathi about Songbirds.
The powerful new novel from the bestselling author of global bestseller The Beekeeper of Aleppo, Songbirds, is a heart-breaking story for our times.
She walks unseen through our world. Cares for our children, cleans our homes. Her voice unheard.
She has a story to tell. Will you listen?
Nisha has crossed oceans to give her child a future. By day she cares for Petra’s daughter, Aliki; at night she mothers her own in Sri Lanka by the light of a phone.
Nisha’s lover is Yiannis, a poacher, who hunts the tiny songbirds as they migrate to Cyprus on their way to Africa each winter. He dreams of finding a new way of life, of marrying Nisha.
When Nisha disappears, little Aliki insists she wouldn’t simply run away; they must find her. As Petra learns to take care of Aliki herself, she comes to understand the woman she barely knew, and realises only she and Yiannis will bother to look for her. What they uncover will change them all.
Set on her native Cyprus, Christy Lefteri has crafted a powerful, redemptive story of loss, of the triumph of the human spirit, and of the enduring love of a mother for her child.
Niall Ferguson is one of Britain’s most renowned historians. He is a Laurence A. Tisch Professor of History at Harvard University, a Senior Research Fellow of Jesus College, Oxford University, and a Senior Fellow of the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and bestselling author of Paper and Iron, The House of Rothschild, The Pity of War, The Cash Nexus, Empire and Colossus
A provocative, original and compelling history of catastrophes and their consequences
Disasters are by their very nature hard to predict. Pandemics, like earthquakes, wildfires, financial crises and wars, are not normally distributed; there is no cycle of history to help us anticipate the next catastrophe. But when disaster strikes, we ought to be better prepared than the Romans were when Vesuvius erupted or medieval Italians when the Black Death struck. We have science on our side, after all. Yet the responses of a number of developed countries to a new pathogen from China were badly bungled. Why?
The facile answer is to blame poor leadership. While populist rulers have certainly performed poorly in the face of the pandemic, more profund problems have been exposed by COVID-19. Only when we understand the central challenge posed by disaster in history can we see that this was also a failure of an administrative state and of economic elites that had grown myopic over much longer than just a few years. Why were so many Cassandras for so long ignored? Why did only some countries learn the right lessons from SARS and MERS? Why do appeals to ‘the science’ often turn out to be mere magical thinking?
Drawing from multiple disciplines, including history, economics and network science, Doom: The Politics of Catastrophe is a global post mortem for a plague year. Drawing on preoccupations that have shaped his books for some twenty years, Niall Ferguson describes the pathologies that have done us so much damage: from imperial hubris to bureaucratic sclerosis and online schism. COVID-19 was a test failed by countries who must learn some serious lessons from history if they are to avoid the doom of irreversible decline.
free of charge to receive the virtual link for the event.
In 1994, 16-year-old Emmanuel Taban walked out of war-torn Sudan with nothing and nowhere to go after he had been tortured at the hands of government forces, who falsely accused him of spying for the rebels. When he finally managed to escape, he literally took a wrong turn and, instead of being reunited with his family, ended up in neighbouring Eritrea as a refugee.
Over the months that followed, young Emmanuel went on a harrowing journey, often spending weeks on the streets and facing many dangers. Relying on the generosity of strangers, he made the long journey south to South Africa, via Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, Mozambique and Zimbabwe, travelling mostly by bus and on foot.
When he reached Johannesburg, 18 months after fleeing Sudan, he was determined to resume his education. He managed to complete his schooling with the help of Catholic missionaries and entered medical school, qualifying as a doctor, and eventually specialising in pulmonology.
Emmanuel’s skill and dedication as a physician, and his stubborn refusal to be discouraged by setbacks, led to an important discovery in the treatment of hypoxaemic COVID-19 patients. By never giving up, this son of Sudan has risen above extreme poverty, racism and xenophobia to become a South African legend. This is his story.
Christy Lefteri in conversation with Sue Nyathi about Songbirds.
The powerful new novel from the bestselling author of global bestseller The Beekeeper of Aleppo, Songbirds, is a heart-breaking story for our times.
She walks unseen through our world. Cares for our children, cleans our homes. Her voice unheard.
She has a story to tell. Will you listen?
Nisha has crossed oceans to give her child a future. By day she cares for Petra’s daughter, Aliki; at night she mothers her own in Sri Lanka by the light of a phone.
Nisha’s lover is Yiannis, a poacher, who hunts the tiny songbirds as they migrate to Cyprus on their way to Africa each winter. He dreams of finding a new way of life, of marrying Nisha.
When Nisha disappears, little Aliki insists she wouldn’t simply run away; they must find her. As Petra learns to take care of Aliki herself, she comes to understand the woman she barely knew, and realises only she and Yiannis will bother to look for her. What they uncover will change them all.
Set on her native Cyprus, Christy Lefteri has crafted a powerful, redemptive story of loss, of the triumph of the human spirit, and of the enduring love of a mother for her child.
Niall Ferguson is one of Britain’s most renowned historians. He is a Laurence A. Tisch Professor of History at Harvard University, a Senior Research Fellow of Jesus College, Oxford University, and a Senior Fellow of the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and bestselling author of Paper and Iron, The House of Rothschild, The Pity of War, The Cash Nexus, Empire and Colossus
A provocative, original and compelling history of catastrophes and their consequences
Disasters are by their very nature hard to predict. Pandemics, like earthquakes, wildfires, financial crises and wars, are not normally distributed; there is no cycle of history to help us anticipate the next catastrophe. But when disaster strikes, we ought to be better prepared than the Romans were when Vesuvius erupted or medieval Italians when the Black Death struck. We have science on our side, after all. Yet the responses of a number of developed countries to a new pathogen from China were badly bungled. Why?
The facile answer is to blame poor leadership. While populist rulers have certainly performed poorly in the face of the pandemic, more profund problems have been exposed by COVID-19. Only when we understand the central challenge posed by disaster in history can we see that this was also a failure of an administrative state and of economic elites that had grown myopic over much longer than just a few years. Why were so many Cassandras for so long ignored? Why did only some countries learn the right lessons from SARS and MERS? Why do appeals to ‘the science’ often turn out to be mere magical thinking?
Drawing from multiple disciplines, including history, economics and network science, Doom: The Politics of Catastrophe is a global post mortem for a plague year. Drawing on preoccupations that have shaped his books for some twenty years, Niall Ferguson describes the pathologies that have done us so much damage: from imperial hubris to bureaucratic sclerosis and online schism. COVID-19 was a test failed by countries who must learn some serious lessons from history if they are to avoid the doom of irreversible decline.
free of charge to receive the virtual link for the event.
In 1994, 16-year-old Emmanuel Taban walked out of war-torn Sudan with nothing and nowhere to go after he had been tortured at the hands of government forces, who falsely accused him of spying for the rebels. When he finally managed to escape, he literally took a wrong turn and, instead of being reunited with his family, ended up in neighbouring Eritrea as a refugee.
Over the months that followed, young Emmanuel went on a harrowing journey, often spending weeks on the streets and facing many dangers. Relying on the generosity of strangers, he made the long journey south to South Africa, via Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, Mozambique and Zimbabwe, travelling mostly by bus and on foot.
When he reached Johannesburg, 18 months after fleeing Sudan, he was determined to resume his education. He managed to complete his schooling with the help of Catholic missionaries and entered medical school, qualifying as a doctor, and eventually specialising in pulmonology.
Emmanuel’s skill and dedication as a physician, and his stubborn refusal to be discouraged by setbacks, led to an important discovery in the treatment of hypoxaemic COVID-19 patients. By never giving up, this son of Sudan has risen above extreme poverty, racism and xenophobia to become a South African legend. This is his story.
