In 1798, after Congress had passed its first direct tax on houses, the government cooked up a scheme to count and measure the windows on every taxpayer's house, in order to calculate how much to charge. But German settlers in eastern Pennsylvania would have none of it. They organized into small bands, armed themselves, and scoured the countryside for assessors who were seized, assaulted, and driven across county lines. When some of the rebels were arrested, an auctioneer named John Fries marched on the courthouse and freed them. President John Adams called out the militia. Fries was arrested,...

Noted historian Charles Adams has assembled an extraordinary collection of articles--never before collected and made available for easy study--written by foreign journalists at the time of the U.S. Civil War. These journals are a fount of insights about the war, and readers will be rewarded with a new appreciation for the views of contemporary foreign observers of America's war. Readers will realize that the Europeans seemed to know more about America's "quarrel," as they liked to call the war, than previously thought possible. Foreign observers wrote in an atmosphere of freedom, without the...

Records the impact of taxation on events in world history, from ancient Egypt to the present, and concludes that taxation has been a force that has shaped world history and has had a direct bearing on the civilization process.

"When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bonds which have connected them with one another, and to assume among the Powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect of the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation." With these words, thirteen of the British colonies in North America unanimously declared independence from British rule. Eighty-five years later, adhering to principles articulated by...

Taxation is a grim reality of life. But few realize the impact that taxation has had on society. This serious, but often amusing, book focuses on the enormous influence that taxation has had on the structuring of society throughout the ages and around the world. Told by an expert on taxation, For Good and Evil is a sweeping overview of the history of taxes from ancient Egypt to today. Full of fascinating details and little-known facts, this book will change forever the way you think about taxes.