World History

Recorded at Mises University 2010.

The imposition of Colbert's regime of statism, monopoly, and prohibitive tariffs, combined with Louis XIV's high taxation and centralization, gave rise, by the late 1660s, to a growing tide of opposition by merchants and nobility alike.

The rebels’ overriding grievance was against the tax farmers and tax officials: “It is they who have forced [the peasants] to take up a

According to Louis XIV, a king is superhuman, a man who is above all and sees all and is the only one working for the “public” good, wh

Catholic political thought had come a long way from the Spanish scholastics.

From Theory and History Part Two, “Determination and Materialism”. Narrated by John Pruden.

What manner of man was this, then, this grand bureaucrat who scorned the interests of mere individuals and merchants as petty and narrow, who presu

On January 22, 1991, Mikhail Gorbachev, the president of the Soviet Union, decreed that all existing 50- and 100-ruble banknotes were no longer legal tender and that they could be exchanged for new notes for three days only and only in small quantities. This had the effect of instantly deleting large portions of the savings and accumulated capital of private citizens.

European democracy broke down because there were no democrats left in continental Europe. The place held in America by the Gettysburg Address was occupied in Europe by the Communist Manifesto. No further comment is necessary.

Armand Jean du Plessis, Cardinal de Richelieu (1585–1642), considered the mass of Frenchmen simply as animals to be prodded or coerced in ways that