Welcome back to the Ten Blocks podcast. This is Brian Anderson, the editor of City Journal.

And joining me today to discuss

his latest book is indeed Neil Ferguson. He's the Milbank family senior fellow at Stanford

University's Hoover Institution and an acclaimed historian who's written books on everything from

finance and social networks to Henry Kissinger and the British Empire.

Last year was an unprecedented time, or so it seemed.

As COVID-19 spread across the world, public officials cited the unique threat of the virus to justify extreme interventions in daily life.

And then civil unrest and violence exploded in U.S. cities in a kind of political

or social contagion that accompanied the public health emergency. It was certainly a troubling

year. As Neil's book shows, however, disasters and crises are never entirely unprecedented.

Political and natural catastrophes are often entwined,

and we should try to understand the causes and characteristics of past calamities to help us grasp

today's, and perhaps better prepare for future disasters. In his new book called Doom,

he investigates the common features of geological and atmospheric, political and geopolitical, biological, biological, and technological disasters with that goal in mind.

Throughout our conversation, please feel free to submit your questions on whatever platform you're watching us on, and we'll do our best to get to as many as we

can. So Neil, thanks very much for joining us today.

It's a pleasure to join you, Brian.

You analyze in doom dozens of historical disasters. These range from the Black Death during the 14th

century and the Napoleonic Wars of the 19th century to the Titanic sinking

in 1911 and the great famine in Mao's China during the 20th century.

These events happened across many different times and places.

But what are the common features in your view, the recurring patterns, and where does COVID-19

...