I'm Nick Gillespie. This is The Reason Interview. My guest today is the Swedish historian of ideas, Johann Norberg, who's a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and the author most recently of Peak Human. What we can learn from the rise and fall of golden ages came out last year. We're going to talk about that book. We're going to talk about populism here and abroad. And we're going to talk about tariffs and whether or not America is no longer in a

golden age. Johan, thanks for talking. Thank you. Let's, you know, give me the summary statement

of peak human. Yeah, peak human. Everybody tells me it sounds like a book on exercise

and how to stay in shape. That's right. And it is, but not on the individual level, but for

cultures, civilizations, how did some cultures historically stay in shape? They kept being

creative and innovative while others decayed. And try to find some lessons, potentially to extend the lifespan of our civilizing.

All right. Yeah. And this mostly involves buying a bunch of supplements that you were also selling,

cultural supplements and staying off carbs.

You talk about eras like ancient Athens for the Roman Republic, Abbasid, Baghdad, the Song Dynasty,

in China, Renaissance, Italy, the Dutch Republic, and kind of the modern Anglosphere. Let's talk about

specifically about the Roman Republic in a second. But it's, and this is a previous work of yours as

well. It's really, you're arguing it's about openness and resilience and interest in kind of constant change in innovation.

Yeah, if you want something in you, you have to be open for surprises.

So often it's ideas and methods borrowed from elsewhere.

So all these golden ages were somewhere in the crossroads between civilizations.

They were merchant culture, seafarers.

They always saw something new and they brought it back home.

But they also had to be innovative back home.

So you needed some space for creative destruction,

for strange novel ideas, discoveries, and method.

And that's rare in history because, you know, it takes this kind of rebellion against vested interests and common knowledge, as the economic historian Joel Moker puts it.

And few cultures like rebellion.

...