Niall Ferguson - Early Life

Early Life

Ferguson was born in Glasgow, Scotland on 18 April 1964. His father was a doctor and his mother a physics teacher. He attended The Glasgow Academy. He was brought up as and remains an atheist.

Ferguson cites his father as instilling in him a strong sense of self-discipline and of the moral value of work, while his mother encouraged his creative side. His journalist maternal grandfather encouraged him to write. Unable to decide on studying an English or a History degree at university, Ferguson cites his reading of War and Peace as persuading him towards History.

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