Niall Ferguson — On the Edge of Chaos, Immersed in the Long Wave

Dr. Ferguson is a very insightful history professor at Harvard who has previously written about the financial history of the world, and recently in Foreign Affairs (March/April, 2010) used some ideas from complexity theory to explain the downfall of nations. Ferguson’s article points away from grand theories like those of Toynbee or more recently Diamond, who focus on long-term cultural, economic, or ecological forces, in favor of very rapid changes; e.g. “A very small trigger can set off a “phase transition” from a benign equilibrium to a crisis…”; the Butterfly Effect.
I am especially intrigued with Ferguson’s portrayal of self-organized criticality in this context because it fits well into the Maslow Window model — that explains rhythmic, twice-per-century clusters of great human explorations, macro-engineering projects, and major wars over the last 200 years – which is fundamentally driven by a long business cycle known as “the long wave.”
What Caused World War I?
No one expected it, but soon historians had constructed a theory extending back to an unfortunate treaty signed in 1839. Nonsense. According to Ferguson, “the proximate triggers of a crisis are often sufficient to explain the sudden shift from a good equilibrium to a bad mess … ...