During the war, the top “marginal rate” was 94%, but 94% of what? Recent history shows tax rates exceedingly high some 50 years ago. How do historians (and educators) accommodate the recent past when putting contexts around today’s loud events? There are only long answers to any questions about taxation in American history, no matter[…]
Marketers decided to focus on the ‘purity’ of factory food processing – a successful strategy that other brands would mimic. Introduction Perhaps you’ll unearth a can of Crisco for the holiday baking season. If so, you’ll be one of millions of Americans who have, for generations, used it to make cookies, cakes, pie crusts and[…]
The economic decline was marked by a severe drop in population. By Dr. Murray N. RothbardHistorian and Economist Most people — historians not excepted — are tempted to think of economic and cultural progress as being continuous: in every century people are better off than in the one preceding. This comforting assumption had to be[…]
Wealthy landowners enclosed (privatized) the commons for their own profits, impoverishing many villagers. By Jay Walljasper Medieval European agriculture was communally organized. Peasants pooled their individual holdings into open fields that were jointly cultivated, and common pastures were used to graze their animals.This system of village commons prospered for more than six hundred years at[…]
By Mark CartwrightHistorian Introduction Regional, inter-regional and international trade was a common feature of the Roman world. A mix of state control and a free market approach ensured goods produced in one location could be exported far and wide. Cereals, wine and olive oil, in particular, were exported in huge quantities whilst in the other[…]
Even citizens found their city confusing. A city – a free city – was where a man could be most fully a man. The Romans took this for granted. To have civitas – citizenship – was to be civilised, an assumption still embedded in English to this day. Life was worthless without those frameworks that[…]