The 'real point' of Niall Ferguson

“Through pure accident of birth I’ve managed to stay relatively youthful. The ratings would probably be lower if I looked hideous. But the real point of me isn’t that I’m good looking. It’s that I’m clever. I’ve got a brain! I would rather be called a highly intelligent historian than a gorgeous pouting one," the Harvard-based historian and intellectual advises the Telegraph's Bryony Gordon as part of a rather interesting interview, in which it may have been appropriate, one senses, to have all of Ferguson's quotations italicized.

Regardless, I'm rather fond of his work; and, surprisingly, his comments on the now-infamous remarks of historian David Starkey: “David’s a brilliant man, and he’s a brave one to challenge the politically correct assumptions of the British media. Starkey was just telling it like it is, and anybody who isn’t able to stomach that is trapped in a self-imposed mental prison. We’ve got to be able to talk about this stuff, otherwise we are never going to understand why relatively poor kids feel so alienated from civilisation and their own rule of law.” He's right, you know.