niall? mr. ferguson: the fragmentation of american society by identity politics has become somehow more acute even in the time that i have been working and living in this country. and i'm afraid that the advent of network platforms has made this tendency worse. there's a paradox, though, which is that as they were being built, the network platforms promised us something even better than the national society that you've just spoken of which is rather a french idea, and that is a global community. mark zuckerberg's favorite phrase for a time was "global community" and he used to argue that the mission of facebook was to build a global community. and it seemed at the time very persuasive. wouldn't it be wonderful if the whole world was connected and we would be able to communicate with everybody, even with our friends in china through vpn's. what 2016 did was to reveal the holiness of the promise or the ambiguity of a connected world and this is one of the central themes of my book, "the square and the towe

. >> coming up, niall ferguson, why he says china is the next global crisis. >> plus, big earnings comingour way after the bell from intel, starbucks andnorfolk southern just to name a few. instant analysis >>> let's get right to breaking news on the government shutdown. ylan has more from washington, d.c. >> reporter: the senate is voting on president trump's proposal it appears that the democrats do have the votes to block that measure from moving forward and after that vote finally concludes the senate will then take up the democrats' plan to fund the government through february 8th without any additional funding for the border wall. now, one democrat did cross party lines to support president trump's plan that was joe manchin of west virginia but there are also several republicans who are expected to support the democrats' plan to reopen the government for a limited amount of time and you are seeing some bipartisanship, very little bit of it here on capitol hill and not expected to be enough for either of the measures to continue to advance. now, just a little bit ago we did house dem

her humiliation is fading from memory i think that asia pivot will resume this year and even niall ferguson when he was looking at the g twenty in december what he pointed out was that that is now china's becoming an organizing principle of foreign policy from both the democrats and republicans so they're starting to notice that we're being left behind and before you know the guy in front of you in the race gets too far away they want to grab you know by you know their shirt and pull them back and make sure that they don't get too far ahead well you know we talk to a lot of people all over the world political experts a political one hundred eighty five million people think anomic experts say that we talked a lot of it and you know they make a very interesting observation about america why does america obsess over russia because when they visit america they go to the university. and they go to technical facilities and corporations they see americans working studying in studying i'm next to them are chinese people chinese students and they make the point that they are gobbling up a lot of inf

, former pakistani president musharraf, actor gary oldman, distinguishes touring to including niall ferguson, and many more to discuss not only the particulars of churchill's life and career but their application to our present-day challenges. for as churchill himself observed the longer you can look back, the farther you can look forward. but now let us turn to the main event. tonight we will learn about a figure utterly devoted to history who in his 30s wrote an admiring biography of the conservative victorian statesman and was chronicled the history of wars around the world. amid a colossal output of nonfiction, in his youth he wrote a single novel featuring a protagonist modeled closely at themselves and engage in the struggle against tyranny. a passionate limits us, his articles one host of political and historical subjects appeared in newspapers and magazines in britain and round the world. a fervent admirer of napoleon, a devout drinker of champagne, a a covenant of prime ministers individuated ten downing street and in our guest at the white house he is truly made his mark on history

. >> coming up, niall ferguson, why he says china is the next global crisis. >> plus, big earnings coming starbucks andnorfolk southern just to name a few. instant analysis >>> let's get right to breaking news on the government shutdown. ylan has more from washington, d.c. >> reporter: the senate is