The Importance of Fighting for Freedom

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The ability to defend your community, stemmed in, was core to the idea that you could remain free. The Yamnaya were a very warlike pastoralist people from the Russian steppe who went into battle on horse-drawn chariots swinging battle axes. All of the men in the Iberian Peninsula were wiped out by the Yamnaya. They presumably baited with the women and the descendants. Today's descendants in Spain mixed female DNA from the Neolithic in Iberia with the male Yamnaya and other immigrant groups that came in afterwards. And those are the people who had Vridom freedom.

Journalist and author Sebastian Junger talks about his book, Freedom, with EconTalk host Russ Roberts. The book and conversation are based on a 400-mile walk Junger took with buddies along railroad rights-of-way, evading police, railroad security, and other wanderers. Junger discusses the ever-present tension between the human desire to be free and the desire to be interconnected and part of something. Along the way, Junger talks about the joy of walking, the limits of human endurance, war, and why the more powerful, better-equipped military isn't always the winner.