This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Wednesday, February 14th, 2024.

I'm Caleb Brown.

In Heroes of Progress, author Alexander Hammond traces the powerful contributions of

dozens of people throughout history, those people who

delivered profound advances in human well-being.

Perhaps not surprisingly to Americans, one of those heroes of progress is the great

Frederick Douglas. We discussed the contributions of Frederick Douglas and some of the

other heroes of progress. Let's start with something broad here. How hard is it to narrow down to a mere few

dozen heroes of progress in the long history of humanity?

Well it was certainly quite difficult,

although the first thing I should say that this book is far from all-encompassing.

But what did help is a fairly narrow definition of what a hero of progress is.

And I have defined that as someone who has saved or significantly improved the lives of millions of people. It could be anyone

from a scientist that saved millions of lives thanks to a vaccine, an agronomist who created a crop that fed billions of hungry people or a thinker whose ideas

change public policy or board about a more enlightened and just society.

And because we are recording this in concert with February 14th,

it is the birthday, the chosen birthday of one of the heroes of progress in your book, Frederick Douglas.

Why does he make the cut?

Well, he makes the cut because the impact that he had on his kind of relentless advocacy for equality under the law for

black Americans really helped shift public opinion against slavery in the United States and

he had an immense influence on both President Abraham Lincoln and then later

President Andrew Johnson on enacting the reconstruction amendments which for the

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