[Jason Jewell]

Alex, as best I can tell this change (which has been underway for at least 20 years) is purely from secularization, and it’s now to the point where most undergraduate college students have probably never had textbook that uses B.C. and A.D. A few years ago I wrote supplemental website material for a mainstream publisher’s textbook, and the publisher insisted I use BCE and CE. A few weeks ago I moderated a panel at a conference in which one of the student presenters told me his professor had essentially forced him to use BCE and CE.

The different markers have never really seemed defensible to me because of their inconsistency, i.e. denying that Jesus is special, but still basing the dating system off the traditional year of his birth.

[Jason Jewell]

Thanks for your kind words about the lectures. I’m glad you and your daughter are finding them worthwhile.

Extrication from global commitments is certainly possible if the political will to do it is there. I saw a national survey recently where, for the first time ever, a majority of respondents said the U.S. should “mind its own business” in international affairs. Of course, there are many entrenched interests who will fight to prevent any such thing from happening, but once the budget problems get so bad that social programs would have to be significantly cut, I suspect the politicians will decide that reducing overseas commitments will be the course more likely to get them reelected.

[Jason Jewell]

James, a couple of other people have asked about this series in the forums. You might want to see what I’ve written in response to them. The short answer is that yes, I think the series is worthwhile, although the Durants hold certain assumptions with which I and most libertarians would disagree.

[Jason Jewell]

Jim, it seems to me that the relationship between technology and centralization depends on the cost of the technology, the thing that determines who has access to it. When a new technology is introduced, often it’s so expensive that only the upper class and State has access to it, so that helps centralize power. But then as the cost of the technology falls and more can acquire it, the process can be mitigated or even reversed.

Jared Diamond is a big name in this area among popular historians. I’m not a big fan of his work because he takes a hard materialist interpretation of everything (i.e. ideas don’t really matter), but he writes well.

[Jason Jewell]

Thanks, Dan. On the paper topic, if your instructor wants you to use primary sources, you should look for a translation of something by Jean-Baptiste Colbert as an exposition of the mercantilist position. Richard Cantillon and Adam Smith are the obvious choices for the anti-mercantilist position . . . maybe Quesnay as well. You should also look for the text of legislation like Cromwell’s 1651 Navigation Act to show mercantilism in action and the repeal of the Corn Laws in the 1840s to show the opposite.

Your paper should probably discuss the tendency of mercantilist policies to lead to war as well. There’s plenty of fodder there.

[Jason Jewell]

Jim, on the question of the political proclivities of academics, I’d recommend Murray Rothbard’s discussions of Court Intellectuals. For example:

“It is evident that the State needs the intellectuals; it is not so evident why intellectuals need the State. Put simply, we may state that the intellectual’s livelihood in the free market is never too secure; for the intellectual must depend on the values and choices of the masses of his fellow men, and it is precisely characteristic of the masses that they are generally uninterested in intellectual matters. The State, on the other hand, is willing to offer the intellectuals a secure and permanent berth in the State apparatus; and thus a secure income and the panoply of prestige. For the intellectuals will be handsomely rewarded for the important function they perform for the State rulers, of which group they now become a part.”

For more in this vein, see “The Anatomy of the State”: http://mises.org/easaran/chap3.asp

I have not read “1491” and am reluctant to venture too many observations on the merits of theses that rely primarily on nuanced interpretation of archeological data, since that sort of falls outside the historian’s area of expertise.

[Jason Jewell]

Jim, Nerva’s measure you cite above would have only applied to Jewish Christians, and the numbers of Jews who convert after the late 1st century is relatively insignificant. It was against the law for Gentiles to be Christians; they were not given any tax benefits. So tax considerations cannot really be a major reason for the spread of Christianity in the 3rd century.

The jizya is probably better viewed as an attempt to decapitalize non-Muslims rather than an effort to dodge taxes on the part of Muslims.

Charles Adams’s history of taxation is probably the best out there, although ancient taxation is not its exclusve focus,

[Jason Jewell]

Matt, I guess it would depend on how far back you wish to go to get context. Anglo-Norman incursions into Ireland began in the 12th century. In addition to the titles TJ mentions above, you might wish to take a look at biographies of some figures like Michael Collins or Eamon de Valera to get historical context. I’m sure there’s at least one good book about the Easter Rising out there, but I am not really up on the bibliography of 20th-century Ireland. I suspect Prof. Casey would know more.

[Jason Jewell]

Daniel, I actually like that Woloch book in some ways. The chapter on statebuilding says that the State came to be viewed as a “vehicle of salvation” in the 18th century. That’s about as good as you can hope to see from a mainstream survey. I don’t know of another general treatment of the period that would be obviously better than that one.

[Jason Jewell]

Daniel, is that the volume from the W.W. Norton series? Who is the author?

[Jason Jewell]

I have not seen the film, but have heard that it’s well done.

As for comparing Danton to Robespierre, I know some attempt to portray Danton as more or less of a moderate in comparison to Robespierre. However, both were Jacobins and confirmed radicals by any measure that could be considered the least bit impartial. Even the so-called moderate Girondists, whom Danton ultimately worked to suppress, were very radical by any pre-1789 standard. Danton may have been marginally less extreme than Robespierre, but I don’t see much value in trying to draw significant distinctions between the two, at least as far as their policies went.

I hope this answers your question.

[Jason Jewell]

Malcolm Muggeridge was the journalist who uncovered a lot of evidence of the famine while in the USSR in the 1930s:

http://www.garethjones.org/soviet_articles/soviet_and_the_peasantry_2.htm

[Jason Jewell]

This is the kind of analysis I would expect from Thorstein Veblen or any Marx-inspired writer who wants to make everything about social class. It completely ignores the possibility that the moderns might have recognized anything true or worthwhile in the Greek tradition deserving of study or preservation. Yes, the Greek tradition includes some things that would encourage an aristocratic order, but there’s lots else as well.

[Jason Jewell]

I haven’t read the entire Durant series, but my impression is that it provides a decent narrative of the main outline of civilization’s history. The Durants have a modernist, secularist bias and are big fans of Napoleon and (in general) centralization. Don’t get blindsided by any of that. The volumes are well written.

[Jason Jewell]

Sorry, Aleksei. I’m just now seeing this post. On the famine, Robert Conquest’s book gets cited a lot: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0195051807/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0195051807&linkCode=as2&tag=thewesttrad-20

I’m not sure what you mean by “actual evidences.”

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