Hello there. This is Mark Bauerline with another conversation. Before we get to it, a word about one of our sponsors.

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world of American higher education at Wyoming Catholic.edu. We have with us today Joseph F. Johnston.

He's a lawyer. He was visiting lecturer at University of Virginia Law School

for a time. He was the author of, is the author, of The Limits of Government. He has a new book

out, which I think is very important and very timely. It is entitled The Decline of Nations,

Lessons for Strengthening America at Home and in the world, our topic today. Welcome,

Mr. Johnson. Yes, thank you very much, Mark. Good to be with you. Well, let's jump right into the book.

Your topic is decline. And you begin by going back to a person, a thinker named Caldun.

Who was he?

And what did he say?

Ibn Caldun was a 14th century philosopher who was in, I believe he worked out of Egypt. He was a specialist in Arabian studies, but he was fully familiar with the Greek and

Roman classics, and he developed a very interesting theory of history, which I use as a starting

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