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Peak Human: What We Can Learn from the Rise and Fall of Golden Ages book cover. Shows a row of arrowhead, spear tips, and a mouse cursor.
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Peak Human

What We Can Learn From History’s Greatest Civilizations

“Peak Human analyzes seven golden ages from ancient Athens to the modern West, revealing the common thread that societies consistently flourish when they embrace openness to trade, ideas, and people—and decline when they withdraw from the world community.”

• Published By Atlantic Books
By Johan Norberg
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Golden ages are marked by periods of spectacular cultural flourishing, scientific exploration, technological achievement and economic growth: Ancient Greece gave us democracy and the rule of the law; out of Abbasid Baghdad came algebra and modern medicine; and the Dutch Republic furnished us with Europe’s greatest artistic movements. As such, each has unique lessons to teach us about the world we live in today. But all previous golden ages have proven finite, whether through external pressures or internal fracturing.

In Peak Human, acclaimed historian Johan Norberg examines seven of humanity’s greatest civilizations—ancient Athens, the Roman Republic, Abbasid Baghdad, Song China, Renaissance Italy, the Dutch Republic and the Anglosphere—and asks: How do we ensure that our current golden age doesn’t end?

Praise for the book

“Norberg deftly punctures popular misconceptions.…Could a history book be more timely?”
—The Economist

“Johan Norberg offers a compelling and timely study of what drove history’s most influential civilisations.…The book comes with impeccable timing.…This is an entertaining and informative read for anyone
interested in the forces that shape how civilisations progress.”
—Financial Times

About the author

Johan Norberg is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and a writer who focuses on globalization, human progress and intellectual history. Norberg is the author and editor of more than 20 books, translated into more than 30 languages. They include The Capitalist Manifesto: Why the Global Free Market Will Save the World, Progress: Ten Reasons to Look Forward to the Future, and Open: The Story of Human Progress. Progress and Open were named by The Economist as a book of the year in 2016 and 2020 respectively. He has been awarded the Manhattan Institute’s 2025 Hayek book prize for The Capitalist Manifesto.