Halvard Leira is Research Professor at the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs (aka ‘NUPI’) in Oslo. Professor Leira and Brent have been friends for some time. He chats with Brent about growing up in Norway in a family of academics, his ‘devouring’ of history, his graduate work at LSE and the University of Oslo, his joining NUPI and meeting the cohort of elite NUPI scholars he’s become good friends with since. He tells the stories behind his publications, how he and a few others were able to get a Historical IR section of the ISA going, how he approaches writing, his role as a dad, and how he decompresses via walking and weight-lifting. They conclude their discussion with thoughts on how the pandemic might change the study, and the field, of International Relations.