The Machete: A Guide to Survival

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I wanted to have the experience of walking through America and watching myself adapt. I didn't think that there would be an, and some kind of like utility to this in an overt way. Beyond that, it didn't seem like, oh, if I do this, I'll,. I'll be released from my psychic pain and we'll be able to move on in my life. It's not in the book because it wasn't in our trip. At the very end, I felt it did become part of the trip in the sense that I got to this stopping point and you don't know your stopping point until you arrive.

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.