Hello there, I'm Chuck Todd and this is the Chuck Todd cast.

Joining me now is Sebastian Younger.

He's a journalist and an author, he's author of the perfect storm and his films Restrepo

and Corn Gowell tell the story of America's Warren Afghanistan from this soldier's point

of view.

But he's out with a new book, it's called Freedom, which looks at what freedom means across

history and across our country. In order to figure it out, he did an unusual thing.

He did a journey with three friends across some railroad lines in Pennsylvania. So Sebastian,

welcome to the Todd cast.

Thank you very much. Pleasure to talk to you.

So the core of your book is about trying to figure out, I guess, the definition of freedom.

Is that the fairest description of what it is?

Well, the definition can get awfully philosophical and then people's eyes glaze over. So what I was

really trying to figure out is what allows us to be free and for purposes free means free

from the control of a power that's greater than ours. So if you are a small society,

are you controlled by the empire, by the, by the hit types or the, or the Honda Dynasty,

for example, if you are a minority group in a population, are you controlled by the majority

group? And, you know, basically humans throughout the millennia have used three techniques for

maintaining your autonomy in the face of greater power. They can outrun them like the

Apache did in the Southwest. They can outfight them like the Montenegroons did against the

Ottomans. They were out number 10 to one and they defeated the Ottomans or they can outthink

them. And that's where in a modern democracy, the thinking part becomes crucial because obviously

...