Rebellion, Rascals, and Revenue

Rebellion, Rascals, and Revenue PDF Author: Michael Keen
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691199981
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 536

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Book Description
An engaging and enlightening account of taxation told through lively, dramatic, and sometimes ludicrous stories drawn from around the world and across the ages Governments have always struggled to tax in ways that are effective and tolerably fair. Sometimes they fail grotesquely, as when, in 1898, the British ignited a rebellion in Sierra Leone by imposing a tax on huts—and, in repressing it, ended up burning the very huts they intended to tax. Sometimes they succeed astonishingly, as when, in eighteenth-century Britain, a cut in the tax on tea massively increased revenue. In this entertaining book, two leading authorities on taxation, Michael Keen and Joel Slemrod, provide a fascinating and informative tour through these and many other episodes in tax history, both preposterous and dramatic—from the plundering described by Herodotus and an Incan tax payable in lice to the (misremembered) Boston Tea Party and the scandals of the Panama Papers. Along the way, readers meet a colorful cast of tax rascals, and even a few tax heroes. While it is hard to fathom the inspiration behind such taxes as one on ships that tended to make them sink, Keen and Slemrod show that yesterday’s tax systems have more in common with ours than we may think. Georgian England’s window tax now seems quaint, but was an ingenious way of judging wealth unobtrusively. And Tsar Peter the Great’s tax on beards aimed to induce the nobility to shave, much like today’s carbon taxes aim to slow global warming. Rebellion, Rascals, and Revenue is a surprising and one-of-a-kind account of how history illuminates the perennial challenges and timeless principles of taxation—and how the past holds clues to solving the tax problems of today.

Rebellion, Rascals, and Revenue

Rebellion, Rascals, and Revenue PDF Author: Michael Keen
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691199981
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 536

Get Book Here

Book Description
An engaging and enlightening account of taxation told through lively, dramatic, and sometimes ludicrous stories drawn from around the world and across the ages Governments have always struggled to tax in ways that are effective and tolerably fair. Sometimes they fail grotesquely, as when, in 1898, the British ignited a rebellion in Sierra Leone by imposing a tax on huts—and, in repressing it, ended up burning the very huts they intended to tax. Sometimes they succeed astonishingly, as when, in eighteenth-century Britain, a cut in the tax on tea massively increased revenue. In this entertaining book, two leading authorities on taxation, Michael Keen and Joel Slemrod, provide a fascinating and informative tour through these and many other episodes in tax history, both preposterous and dramatic—from the plundering described by Herodotus and an Incan tax payable in lice to the (misremembered) Boston Tea Party and the scandals of the Panama Papers. Along the way, readers meet a colorful cast of tax rascals, and even a few tax heroes. While it is hard to fathom the inspiration behind such taxes as one on ships that tended to make them sink, Keen and Slemrod show that yesterday’s tax systems have more in common with ours than we may think. Georgian England’s window tax now seems quaint, but was an ingenious way of judging wealth unobtrusively. And Tsar Peter the Great’s tax on beards aimed to induce the nobility to shave, much like today’s carbon taxes aim to slow global warming. Rebellion, Rascals, and Revenue is a surprising and one-of-a-kind account of how history illuminates the perennial challenges and timeless principles of taxation—and how the past holds clues to solving the tax problems of today.

City of Inmates

City of Inmates PDF Author: Kelly Lytle Hernández
Publisher: UNC Press Books
ISBN: 1469631199
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 312

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Book Description
Los Angeles incarcerates more people than any other city in the United States, which imprisons more people than any other nation on Earth. This book explains how the City of Angels became the capital city of the world's leading incarcerator. Marshaling more than two centuries of evidence, historian Kelly Lytle Hernandez unmasks how histories of native elimination, immigrant exclusion, and black disappearance drove the rise of incarceration in Los Angeles. In this telling, which spans from the Spanish colonial era to the outbreak of the 1965 Watts Rebellion, Hernandez documents the persistent historical bond between the racial fantasies of conquest, namely its settler colonial form, and the eliminatory capacities of incarceration. But City of Inmates is also a chronicle of resilience and rebellion, documenting how targeted peoples and communities have always fought back. They busted out of jail, forced Supreme Court rulings, advanced revolution across bars and borders, and, as in the summer of 1965, set fire to the belly of the city. With these acts those who fought the rise of incarceration in Los Angeles altered the course of history in the city, the borderlands, and beyond. This book recounts how the dynamics of conquest met deep reservoirs of rebellion as Los Angeles became the City of Inmates, the nation's carceral core. It is a story that is far from over.

Revolution and Rebellion in the Early Modern World

Revolution and Rebellion in the Early Modern World PDF Author: Jack A. Goldstone
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 9780520913752
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 644

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Book Description
What can the great crises of the past teach us about contemporary revolutions? Arguing from an exciting and original perspective, Goldstone suggests that great revolutions were the product of 'ecological crises' that occurred when inflexible political, economic, and social institutions were overwhelmed by the cumulative pressure of population growth on limited available resources. Moreover, he contends that the causes of the great revolutions of Europe—the English and French revolutions—were similar to those of the great rebellions of Asia, which shattered dynasties in Ottoman Turkey, China, and Japan. The author observes that revolutions and rebellions have more often produced a crushing state orthodoxy than liberal institutions, leading to the conclusion that perhaps it is vain to expect revolution to bring democracy and economic progress. Instead, contends Goldstone, the path to these goals must begin with respect for individual liberty rather than authoritarian movements of 'national liberation.' Arguing that the threat of revolution is still with us, Goldstone urges us to heed the lessons of the past. He sees in the United States a repetition of the behavior patterns that have led to internal decay and international decline in the past, a situation calling for new leadership and careful attention to the balance between our consumption and our resources. Meticulously researched, forcefully argued, and strikingly original, Revolutions and Rebellions in the Early Modern World is a tour de force by a brilliant young scholar. It is a book that will surely engender much discussion and debate.

Wages of Rebellion

Wages of Rebellion PDF Author: Chris Hedges
Publisher: Bold Type Books
ISBN: 1568584903
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 306

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Book Description
Revolutions come in waves and cycles. We are again riding the crest of a revolutionary epic, much like 1848 or 1917, from the Arab Spring to movements against austerity in Greece to the Occupy movement. In Wages of Rebellion, Chris Hedges -- who has chronicled the malaise and sickness of a society in terminal moral decline in his books Empire of Illusion and Death of the Liberal Class -- investigates what social and psychological factors cause revolution, rebellion, and resistance. Drawing on an ambitious overview of prominent philosophers, historians, and literary figures he shows not only the harbingers of a coming crisis but also the nascent seeds of rebellion. Hedges' message is clear: popular uprisings in the United States and around the world are inevitable in the face of environmental destruction and wealth polarization. Focusing on the stories of rebels from around the world and throughout history, Hedges investigates what it takes to be a rebel in modern times. Utilizing the work of Reinhold Niebuhr, Hedges describes the motivation that guides the actions of rebels as "sublime madness" -- the state of passion that causes the rebel to engage in an unavailing fight against overwhelmingly powerful and oppressive forces. For Hedges, resistance is carried out not for its success, but as a moral imperative that affirms life. Those who rise up against the odds will be those endowed with this "sublime madness." From South African activists who dedicated their lives to ending apartheid, to contemporary anti-fracking protests in Alberta, Canada, to whistleblowers in pursuit of transparency, Wages of Rebellion shows the cost of a life committed to speaking the truth and demanding justice. Hedges has penned an indispensable guide to rebellion.

Richard III and Buckingham's Rebellion

Richard III and Buckingham's Rebellion PDF Author: Louise Gill
Publisher: Alan Sutton Publishing
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 200

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Book Description
"Through analysis of a cross-section of the rebels, the author demonstrates in vivid detail the connections between the leading southern gentry, their collective involvement in local government and their links with the court of Edward IV. Continuity of service under the new regime is set alongside the conspiracies and rebellion of 1483, providing the context for a detailed examination of Richard's response to the rising and the political dislocation it created. The study of the rebellion serves also as a fascinating expose of power relationships, patronage and cronyism in Ricardian England."--BOOK JACKET.

The Art of Creative Rebellion

The Art of Creative Rebellion PDF Author: John S. Couch
Publisher: John Couch
ISBN: 1989025951
Category : Self-Help
Languages : en
Pages : 317

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Book Description
Can a creative mind thrive in a corporate landscape? Can a business leader use creativity to guide teams more effectively? From one of today’s leading creative minds comes a book for modern rebels on building a rewarding life without losing your edge. Written for uncompromising creative thinkers and aspiring changemakers, The Art of Creative Rebellion encapsulates insights and wisdom collected over a life of creative and professional prosperity. In these frank and insightful reflections, John S. Couch shares with young free thinkers the uncompromising principles needed to thrive in a world that seems to reward conformity. Above all, The Art of Creative Rebellion is a guide to shaping a life, career and reality that nourishes the spirit and feeds the soul—without compromises or apologies.

Digital Rebellion

Digital Rebellion PDF Author: Todd Wolfson
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
ISBN: 0252096800
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 249

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Book Description
Digital Rebellion examines the impact of new media and communication technologies on the spatial, strategic, and organizational fabric of social movements. Todd Wolfson reveals how aspects of the mid-1990s Zapatistas movement--network organizational structure, participatory democratic governance, and the use of communication tools as a binding agent--became essential parts of Indymedia and other Cyber Left organizations. From there he uses oral interviews and other rich ethnographic data to chart the media-based think tanks and experiments that continued the Cyber Left's evolution through the Independent Media Center's birth around the 1999 WTO protests in Seattle. Melding virtual and traditional ethnographic practice to explore the Cyber Left's cultural logic, Wolfson maps the social, spatial and communicative structure of the Indymedia network and details its operations on the local, national and global level. He looks at the participatory democracy that governs global social movements and the ways democracy and decentralization have come into tension, and how "the switchboard of struggle" conducts stories from the hyper-local and disperses them worldwide. As he shows, understanding the intersection of Indymedia and the Global Social Justice Movement illuminates their foundational role in the Occupy struggle and other emergent movements that have re-energized radical politics.

The Jacobite Rebellion 1745–46

The Jacobite Rebellion 1745–46 PDF Author: Gregory Fremont-Barnes
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 147281035X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 142

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Book Description
The Jacobite Rebellion was the final attempt of the House of Stuart to re-establish itself on the British throne and it saw the death throes of the independent martial prowess of the Highland clans. No event in British history has been more heavily romanticized, but Gregory Fremont-Barnes succeeds in stripping away the myths to reveal the key events of this crucial period. From questions of dynastic succession to religious dominance, the events leading to the Rebellion are carefully explained and analyzed, drawing upon a host of primary research. From the landing of Bonnie Prince Charlie to the battle of Culloden, this book offers a complete overview of the Rebellion, complete with detailed maps and beautiful period illustrations.

The Whiskey Rebellion

The Whiskey Rebellion PDF Author: William Hogeland
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1439193290
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 322

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Book Description
A gripping and sensational tale of violence, alcohol, and taxes, The Whiskey Rebellion uncovers the radical eighteenth-century people’s movement, long ignored by historians, that contributed decisively to the establishment of federal authority. In 1791, on the frontier of western Pennsylvania, local gangs of insurgents with blackened faces began to attack federal officials, beating and torturing the tax collectors who attempted to collect the first federal tax ever laid on an American product—whiskey. To the hard-bitten people of the depressed and violent West, the whiskey tax paralyzed their rural economies, putting money in the coffers of already wealthy creditors and industrialists. To Alexander Hamilton, the tax was the key to industrial growth. To President Washington, it was the catalyst for the first-ever deployment of a federal army, a military action that would suppress an insurgency against the American government. With an unsparing look at both Hamilton and Washington, journalist and historian William Hogeland offers a provocative, in-depth analysis of this forgotten revolution and suppression. Focusing on the battle between government and the early-American evangelical movement that advocated western secession, The Whiskey Rebellion is an intense and insightful examination of the roots of federal power and the most fundamental conflicts that ignited—and continue to smolder—in the United States.

The Spy of the Rebellion

The Spy of the Rebellion PDF Author: Allan Pinkerton
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : African Americans
Languages : en
Pages : 728

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Book Description