Editor’s Note: This article originally appeared in the latest issue of Finance & Development (F&D) magazine, published by the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
Ninth-century Baghdad, the seat of the Abbasid Caliphate, was designed as a perfect circle in tribute to the Greek geometer Euclid. The empire, enriched by its vast trade networks in goods and ideas, sponsored an ambitious translation movement aimed at gathering the accumulated knowledge of the many cultures with which it engaged. This spirit of openness became one of the defining keys to the success of seven great civilizations that flourished over two and a half millennia. The lessons drawn from these eras feel especially urgent today, as nations increasingly choose to close themselves off—physically, economically, digitally, and intellectually. Leaders often promise safety, restored greatness, and a return to a mythologized golden age through protection and control. It is an appealing message during periods of uncertainty, yet history offers a different and far more complicated truth.
The most secure and prosperous societies of the past were those that refused to hide from the world. These civilizations showed the confidence to remain open to trade and new ideas, allowing the unfamiliar to challenge the familiar. Progress occurs when people experiment freely, borrow widely, and combine insights in ways no central authority could have predicted. Decline, by contrast, takes hold when fear eclipses curiosity. These principles form the core lessons of history’s real golden ages, explored in the book Peak Human: What We Can Learn from the Rise and Fall of Golden Ages.
Although varied in geography and culture, the seven civilizations examined—from ancient Athens to the modern Anglosphere—shared striking similarities. They all experienced periods of intense innovation, marked by bursts of cultural creativity, scientific discovery, technological advancement, and economic expansion. Yet it must be acknowledged that these eras were far from golden for everyone. All these societies practiced slavery and denied women most rights until very recent times. As classicist Mary Beard has noted, when readers idealize ancient Rome, they often imagine themselves as senators—a tiny elite of a few hundred men—rather than the millions of enslaved people who formed the empire’s foundation. Still, poverty and oppression have been constants throughout human history. What made these seven cultures exceptional was that they nevertheless expanded freedom, opportunity, and living standards for a larger share of their populations than other civilizations of their era.
The roots of their success did not lie in geography, ethnicity, or religion. Creative and open cultures have appeared in unlikely environments—regions with rugged terrain, poor soil, or few natural resources. Places once considered peripheral have often risen to become global leaders. What these civilizations truly shared was an open mindset. They came in many religious and philosophical forms—pagan, Muslim, Confucian, Christian, and secular—but what mattered was not their particular beliefs. Instead, what mattered was that their beliefs did not harden into inflexible orthodoxy. Greatness emerged when imitation evolved into innovation. No civilization created every breakthrough that propelled its success; instead, each borrowed, adapted, or even stole ideas from others. Athens drew heavily from Mesopotamian, Egyptian, Phoenician, and other Greek city-state traditions. The Abbasids deliberately built Baghdad at what has been called “the crossroads of the universe,” granting them access to foreign goods, skills, and discoveries.
Openness to international trade exposed societies to new habits, new technologies, and new perspectives, challenging the idea that there is only one correct way to live, believe, or produce. Maritime powers, especially, expanded their worldviews as they traveled. Renaissance Italian merchants adopted Arabic numerals and imported foreign texts. British merchants returning from the East brought back porcelain and textiles that reshaped domestic production. The Romans, despite their brutality, absorbed cultures, methods, and people through a form of strategic tolerance that helped them acquire new technologies and talent for their legions and Senate. The Dutch Republic, like today’s United States, attracted a steady flow of skilled newcomers—artisans who fueled industrial ventures and dissidents who propelled Enlightenment thinking.
Still, imitation had limits. Long-term progress required combining imported influences with local ideas to produce transformative breakthroughs—better crops, superior tools, innovative art, and new financial institutions. For such creativity to flourish, individuals needed the freedom to experiment, discuss, and exchange ideas, even when this threatened powerful interests. As Nobel Prize–winning economic historian Joel Mokyr argues, every major innovation is an act of rebellion against established wisdom and entrenched elites. Eventually, progress became self-reinforcing, reshaping how these societies viewed themselves. As new ideas improved living conditions and spread, they sometimes produced a culture of ongoing creativity—an atmosphere of optimism that proved decisive. But when conventional wisdom and vested interests retained veto power, innovation stalled.
In the most dynamic civilizations, such barriers were uncommon. Athens practiced direct democracy, giving every free man a voice in the assembly. Italian city-states and the Dutch Republic were controlled by wealthy elites, yet power remained dispersed and subject to checks. Across history, a separation of powers has been essential to protect liberty and allow new ideas to flourish—something the US founders recognized from studying ancient models. Meanwhile, rulers in the Roman Empire, the Abbasid Caliphate, and Song China wielded immense authority, even life-and-death power, but were still constrained by legal traditions and expectations regarding individual rights. Reminding an emperor of such limits could be dangerous, but the constraints existed nonetheless.
Innovation also required a hopeful cultural climate—a belief that risk-taking might lead to reward. This atmosphere defined the Renaissance, the Industrial Revolution, and the modern technological era. Patrons, patents, and role models played essential roles. Innovation clusters emerged where creators could inspire, challenge, and learn from one another: philosophers in Athens, artists in Florence, and engineers in Silicon Valley. In Renaissance Florence, Michelangelo mocked Leonardo da Vinci for procrastinating and failing to finish many works. Leonardo criticized Michelangelo’s exaggerated musculature, saying it resembled sacks of walnuts. Their rivalry, though harsh, pushed both to achieve even greater heights. Pessimism, by contrast—the belief that everything is hopeless and effort is futile—becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy and explains why golden ages eventually fade.
As time passed, entrenched interests often regained power and resisted further change. Political, economic, and intellectual elites built their authority on specific ideas, social structures, and methods of production. When these began shifting too rapidly, those in power attempted to slow or reverse the transformations. Elites who had once benefited from innovation now sought to prevent others from following the same path. Roman emperors centralized authority at the expense of self-governing provinces. Leaders in Renaissance republics converted elected positions into hereditary ones. Such internal fractures left societies vulnerable to external threats. While invaders could destroy cities and kill people, only a society itself could extinguish curiosity and creativity. Under pressure, populations gravitated toward stability, predictability, and the rejection of unfamiliar ideas.
Every great civilization experienced its own symbolic “death of Socrates” moment. In times of crisis—whether pandemics, natural disasters, or wars—societies often turned inward, persecuting intellectuals, minorities, and independent thinkers. Strongmen rose to power, imposing economic controls and abandoning open engagement with the world. In the late Roman Empire, pagans persecuted Christians, and soon Christians persecuted pagans. As the Abbasid Caliphate fragmented, its rulers forged oppressive alliances between state and religion. The Renaissance ended as Protestant and Catholic authorities alike built church-state structures to suppress dissent and scientific inquiry, leading scholars to become cautious and culture to look inward. Even the tolerant Dutch Republic succumbed when attacked in 1672 by France and England. A frightened population embraced an authoritarian stadtholder and murdered Johan de Witt, one of the architects of their golden age. Hardline Calvinists then purged Enlightenment thinkers from universities.
As openness collapsed, so did prosperity. Strongmen replaced freedom of expression with orthodoxy, and free markets with economic controls. Governments facing fiscal crises eroded property rights and undermined markets in order to seize resources. Rulers in Rome, the Abbasid Empire, and China attempted to solve social problems by tying peasants to the land and replacing commercial exchange with command systems. Excessive borrowing and currency debasement led to inflation and financial chaos. International trade—the engine of earlier breakthroughs—waned due to war or deliberate policy. After the Song dynasty, the Ming banned foreign trade entirely. Rome and the Abbasids militarized their economies to the point of extinguishing commerce. These reactions undermined local adaptability, weakened technological capacity, and choked the flow of ideas that might have helped societies navigate crises. Cut off from curiosity and innovation, they declined.
Studying history is both inspiring and humbling. Progress can arise unexpectedly when institutions support openness and experimentation, but sustaining progress demands constant effort. The ancient historian Thucydides captured this tension by contrasting the mindsets of Athenians and Spartans: the Athenians eager to seek out new ideas abroad, the Spartans intent on preserving what they already had by shutting out the world. Only the Athenian mindset supports continuous learning, innovation, and growth. Every civilization—and every individual—contains elements of both. The challenge is choosing which one we allow to define our future.
