Generally, I’m not a fan of Niall Ferguson, that frenziedly self-promoting neo-imperialist Caledonian, who now hangs out at the American Enterprise Institute, where he spends his time toasting Winston Churchill and telling us Yanks that we’re not man enough to run the world the way the Brits did. But in his latest effusion, Civilization, which is reasonably worth reading, he kicks things off by quoting Thelonious Monk! That bastard!