Niall Ferguson is among Britain’s most valuable exports – a feted international academic with seats at Harvard, Stanford, the Harvard Business School and the LSE; he has also had spells at Oxford and Cambridge. His tomes sell in their millions; his TV shows are an engaging mix of self-confidence and charm. He is a credible talking head and he is consistently placed on lists of ‘influential people’. Across the globe then, Ferguson ‘matters’. Everywhere save British academic circles, where he’s seen as a neo-conservative oddity.
It’s sometimes said that the British, unlike the French and the Americans, mistrust public intellectuals. But the careers of Richard Dawkins, A. J. Ayer, Bertrand Russell and A.J.P. Taylor say otherwise. Even the truly odious Hugh Trevor-Roper was more loved than feared. Why, then, is Ferguson reviled rather than revered?
Naturally, envy plays its part.
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