Charles Adams

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 dangers that crippled and destroyed journalism in America. Foreign writers were not arrested and locked up; nor were foreign journals silenced by armed soldiers, mobs, or by censorship of the mails, nor were their editors hauled off to prison. Also, the American Civil War was not their struggle, and, as the reader will discover, by looking at the quarrel from a distance the foreign correspondents could see what Americans at the scene could not. A broad sweep of views running from pro-North to pro-South, with foreign writers marshalling their arguments with facts and information that had come to their attention, is presented. Among the many distinguished British journals represented are Blackwood's Magazine, The Saturday Review, Macmillan's Magazine, The Athenaeum, The Cornhill Magazine, The Economist, The Times and two periodicals edited by Charles Dickens—Household Words and All the Year Round. From the continent there are translated articles from the French La Presse and Revue des Deux Monde, the Italian La Civilta Cattolica and Scritti Editie Inediti, and the Spanish Pensamiento Espanol and La Iberia. Civil War historians and students will certainly benefit from the fascinating observations afforded by the golden age of periodical literature presented in Slavery, Secession, and Civil War.

"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 their revolutionary forebears, the 11 Confederate States of America seceded from the United States, plunging the country into the bloodiest war of its history. Until the publication of this highly original book, most attempts to explain the origins of the American Civil War relied heavily on regional sympathies and mythology—that the South abandoned the Union to maintain slavery while President Lincoln's primary goal was to preserve the nation. Prominent scholar Charles Adams challenges this traditional wisdom. Using primary documents from both foreign and domestic observers, Adams makes a powerful and convincing case that the Southern states were legitimately exercising their political rights as expressed in the Declaration of Independence. Although conventional histories have taught generations of Americans that this was a war fought for lofty moral principles, Adams' eloquent history transcends simple Southern partisanship to show how the Civil War was primarily a battle over competing commercial interests, opposing interpretations of constitutional rights, and what English novelist Charles Dickens described as "a fiscal quarrel." Working from the premise that "wars have seldom been justified," Adams argues that the Civil War was an avoidable humanitarian disaster that nearly destroyed American democracy. This bold and controversial book will not only change how historians think about the causes of the Civil War bu

The first edition of Adams' study of the history of taxation had heads turning across the nation, with excited reviews appearing in dozens of national newspapers and magazines in addition to local papers in almost every state. Adams makes a convincing case for taxes being the cause of many of the landmark events in civilization's history. Starting in ancient Egypt, Adams surveys how governments established and collected their taxes, and how these procedures led to the fall of Rome, the rise of Islam and the Arabs' successful conquests, the signing of the Magna Carta, the American Revolution and Civil War, and many other momentous events. Adams also offers suggestions for governments wishing to avoid the fate of previous nations destroyed by ignorant tax policies, something every American will no doubt read with much interest.

From the Boston Tea Party to the Whiskey Rebellion to the Fries Rebellion, the late eighteenth century in America was full of armed violence in response to hated taxes. Yet, as Charles Adams recounts in this remarkable book, the Fries Rebellion was also far from the last of its kind. Today, as long-overdue calls for abolishing or overhauling the IRS are finally being heard in the halls of Congress, Those Dirty Rotten Taxes teaches us that we are continuing a long and vitally important American tradition.

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.

The very word Taxes sends shivers up spines. Yet, very few realize the tremendous impact that taxation has had on civilization. The author changes that in this fascinating history.