We've been dealing with pandemics from the earliest recorded history. Thucydides writes about a pandemic in the history of the Peloponnesian War.

So the last thing 2020 was was unprecedented.

Hello and welcome to the GZero World podcast. Here you'll find extended versions of interviews from my show on public television.

I'm Ian Bremmer. And today, we are looking at the geopolitics of catastrophe. From earthquakes and

hurricanes to famines and pandemics, the inevitable media strike, where do we draw the line

between what we consider natural disasters and those caused by humans.

And as some parts of the world put COVID-19 behind them or try to,

how do we stop it from happening again?

I'm talking to Stanford historian and best-selling author Neil Ferguson.

He also has a mean Scottish brogue,

who just is out with a surprisingly chipper new book about the

history of disasters.

It's called Doom, all caps, the politics of catastrophe.

Let's get to it.

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