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# Niall Ferguson
*Author, Filmmaker*
Niall Ferguson, MA, DPhil, FRSE, writes and lectures on international history, economic and financial history and British and American imperialism. He is known for his positive views concerning the British Empire.
Niall’s current book, *Doom*, The *Politics of Catastrophe*, draws from multiple disciplines, including economics, cliodynamics, and network science to offer not just a history but a general theory of disasters, showing why our ever more bureaucratic and complex systems are getting worse at handling them.
In his books going back nearly twenty years, including *Colossus*, *The Great Degeneration*, and *The Square and the Tower*, Niall  has studied the foibles of modern America, from imperial hubris to bureaucratic sclerosis and online fragmentation.
The author of sixteen books, including *The Pity of War, The House of Rothschild, Empire, Civilization and Kissenger.* *1923-1968:  The Idealist*, which won the Council on Foreign Relations Arthur Ross Prize. He is an award-making filmmaker, too, having won an international Emmy for his PBS series *The Ascent of Money*. His 2018 book, *The Square and the Tower*, was a *New York Times* bestseller and also adapted for television by PBS as Niall Ferguson’s Networld. In 2020 he joined *Bloomberg Opinion* as a columnist. In addition, he is the founder and managing director of Greenmantle LLC, a New York-based advisory firm, a co-founding board member of Ualá, a Latin American financial technology company, and a trustee of the New York Historical Society and the London-based Centre for Policy Studies.
Ferguson is the Milbank Family Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and a senior faculty fellow of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard.
*Photo: Tom Barnes*
Niall Ferguson’s books
## Other 2021 Authors & Speakers
## Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Born in Somalia, Ayaan Hirsi Ali earned international attention as a critic of Islam and advocate for the rights and self-determination of Muslim women, actively opposing forced marriage, honor violence, child marriage and female genital mutilation. She founded the AHA Foundation – an organization for the defense of women’s rights.
## Isabel Allende
A literary powerhouse and master storyteller whose words electrify the soul and ignite the imagination, Isabel Allende will discuss *My Name, Emilia del Valle*, to be released on May 6, 2025.
## Dr. Euan Ashley
Professor of Medicine and Genetics, Stanford University, Author
## Dave Barry
Pulitzer Prize Winning Author, Humorist, Columnist
## John Briscoe
John Briscoe is a San Francisco poet, author, lawyer, and restaurateur. He has published poetry, articles on law, literature and history, and several books including *Crush: The Triumph of California Wine*, *The Lost Poems of Cangjie*, and *Tadich Grill: The Story of San Francisco’s Oldest Restaurant*.
## Jeffrey Brown
Jeffrey Brown is Senior Correspondent and Chief Arts Correspondent for PBS *NewsHour*, public television’s prestigious nightly news program viewed by millions. During his career with *NewsHour* he has served as co-anchor, studio moderator, and field reporter on a wide range of national and international issues.
## Daniel James Brown
Daniel James Brown is author of *The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Olympics* (2013), that was a #1 New York Times Bestseller list for 137 weeks. Dan’s latest book, *Facing the Mountain: A True Story of Japanese American Heroes in World War II (2021)*portrays the kaleidoscopic journey of four Japanese American families and their second generation young men-the Nisei-who volunteered for the 442 Regimental Combat Team. The 442nd was deployed to France, Germany and Italy, where they were asked  to do the near impossible in often suicidal missions.
## Billy Collins
Two-time US Poet Laureate, dubbed “the most popular poet in America” by the New York Times
## Alison R. Crowther
Allison Crowther established the Welles Remy Crowther Charitable Trust to assist young people to become exemplary adults through education, health, recreation, and character development, in honor of her son, Welles, who perished while assisting other people evacuating the burning World Trade Center on 911
## John Dalton
A former Secretary of the Navy and distinguished Naval Academy graduate, shares his inspiring journey in *“At the Helm: My Journey with Family, Faith, and Friends to Calm the Storms of Life.”* His memoir highlights principled leadership, ethical challenges faced, and pivotal contributions to naval history.
## Wade Davis
National Geographic Explorer in Residence, Ethnographer, Writer, Photographer and Filmmaker
## Alex Filippenko
Filippenko is an Astrophysicist on a Nobel Prize winning team, as well as the 2007 Gruber Cosmology Prize, 2015 Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics to all team members. He was voted the “best professor at UC Berkeley 9 years!”.
## Craig Frazier
Internationally renowned illustrator, designer and visual storyteller. Author/designer of children’s books and 7 US Postage stamps including the 2006 Love stamp.
## Don George
Don George is an editor-at-large for *National Geographic Traveler* magazine, as well as host of the *National Geographic Live* series of conversations with notable authors. In four decades as a travel writer and editor, Don has visited more than 90 countries on five continents.
## Doris Kearns Goodwin
A Pulitzer-Prize winning biographer, presidential historian, former sports journalist and political commentator.
## Tom Ikeda
Tom Ikeda is the founding Executive Director of Densho, a grassroots organization dedicated to preserving, educating, and sharing the story of World War II-era incarceration of Japanese Americans in order to deepen understandings of American history and inspire action for equity. Tom was wrote the forward and consulted with  Daniel James Brown writing of  *Facing the Mountain.*
## Walter Isaacson
Walter Isaacson has established himself as the biographer of creativity, innovation, and genius. Einstein was the genius of the revolution in physics, and Steve Jobs was the genius of the revolution in digital technology.
## Steven E. Koonin, PhD
Leader in Science Policy in the US, Author, Undersecretary for Science for President Obama, Theoretical Physics Professor at CalTech then NYU
## Min Jin Lee
Acclaimed Author, Finalist National Book Award in Fiction and Professor at Princeton University
## H.R. McMaster
H.R. McMaster retired with thirty-four years of experience as an officer in the U.S. Army commanding troops in Afghanistan, Iraq, Kuwait, and during Desert Storm, followed by a position as National Security Advisor in the White House, and professorships at Stanford University and the Hoover Institution, H.R. McMaster brings us his well-qualified viewpoint of the geopolitical landscape and decades of first-hand knowledge of the global stage today.
## Dr. Joyce Mikal-Flynn
Dr. Mikal-Flynn has worked in the area of trauma and post-trauma recovery for over twenty years. Drawing on her  own miraculous recovery from an accident that left her clinically dead for twenty-two minutes, her new book, *Anatomy of a Survivor: Building Resilience, Grit, and Growth After Trauma,*reveals all she has learned from working with hundreds of patients as well as her own journey back to wellness.
## Nicole Perlroth
Nicole Perlroth covers cybersecurity and digital espionage for *The New York Times*. She has covered Russian hacks of nuclear plants, airports, and elections, North Korea’s cyberattacks against movie studios, banks and hospitals, Iranian attacks on oil companies, banks and the Trump campaign and hundreds of Chinese cyberattacks, including a months-long hack of The Times.
## Dr. Ramon Resa
Acclaimed Author and Physician, “Out of the Fields: My Journey from Farmworker Boy to Pediatrician” has for over 35 years taken care of children like himself as a child
## Tom Rinaldi
Tom Rinaldi, winner of 16 Sports Emmy Awards and 7 Edward R. Murrow Awards for his reporting for FOX New and ESPN
## Luis J. Rodriguez
Luis J. Rodriguez believes a writer can change the world.
## David M. Rubenstein
Mr. Rubenstein is a leader in the area of Patriotic Philanthropy, having made transformative gifts for the restoration or repair of the Washington Monument, Monticello, Montpelier, Mount Vernon, Arlington House, Iwo Jima Memorial, the Kennedy Center, the Smithsonian, the National Archives, the National Zoo, the Library of Congress, and the National Museum of African American History and Culture.
## Dan Russell, PhD
Daniel M. Russell‘s book, *The Joy of Search: A Google Insider’s Guide to Going Beyond the Basics*, explains how to frame search queries so they will yield information and describes the best ways to use such resources as Google Earth, Google Scholar, Wikipedia, and Wikimedia. It was published by MIT Press in September 2019.
## Julia Flynn Siler
Julia Flynn Siler is a bestselling author and acclaimed journalist known for her impactful works such as *“The White Devil’s Daughters”* and *“Lost Kingdom: Hawaii’s Last Queen.”*
## James Strock
Strock writes the ‘*Next Nationalism’* on Substack and hosts the ‘*Serve to Lead’* podcast.
## Amy Tan
Bestselling author of more than a dozen novels and memoirs, including *The Joy Luck Club.*
## Bari Weiss
Bari Weiss is a journalist and the author of *“How to Fight Anti-Semitism,”* which won a 2019 National Jewish Book Award. From 2017 to 2020 Weiss was an opinion writer and editor at *The New York Times*. Before that, she was an op-ed and book review editor at *The Wall Street Journal* and a senior editor at *Tablet*Magazine.
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