Niall Ferguson x World Affairs: Are we living in the first networked age?

Are we truly living in the first 'Networked Aged'? Niall Ferguson in his book the Square and the Tower argues that social networks are not new but actually have been fundamental in shaping history. From the printers and preachers who made the Reformation to the Freemasons who led the American Revolution, it was the networkers who disrupted the old order of popes and kings. Traditional relations between hierarchies and networks have empathized security and growth, yet Ferguson points out that these relationships are much more nuanced than we typically give them credit.