The radicals saw it not merely as a monstrous burden, but as an ‘inquisitorial’ intrusion into the privacy of a man’s financial affairs. Johnson points out that one of the reasons behind emigration from Europe was that it was “a painfully overtaxed continent.” He continues by noting that the “British were spared internal customs, but they groaned under the income tax. However, Great Britain also provided an amenable growth environment. According to Johnson, when English entrepreneur Thomas Hulme visited Pittsburgh in 1817 he found the city to be “already a major coal-iron and manufacturing center, crowded with ‘skillful and industrious artisans and mechanics from all over the world,’ who were paid wages at twice the British level with much lower taxes.” The parts of the globe that adopted the free enterprise system-liberating trade, securing property rights, limiting government intrusions in the marketplace, and reducing taxes-witnessed prosperity and stability. One recurrent theme is the great expansion of economic opportunity. The numerous and often quite diverse themes that emerged during the rise of the modern era-encompassing economics, politics, science, philosophy, and culture-are exhaustively explored. Johnson describes how, as the Napoleonic Wars came to an end, many of the ideas conceived in the 1770s and 1780s finally were given birth during 1815-1830, laying the foundations of modernity.

Now, in The Birth of the Modern, Johnson has brought his considerable talents to bear on the formative years of 1815-1830. In his Modern Times (recently updated), Johnson eloquently relayed the story of the 20th century-from the 1920s up to the 1990s-with new insights and a keen historical eye untarnished by the leftist ideology that afflicts many of today’s historians. Few historians have made their subject more compelling than Paul Johnson.

Modern times by paul johnson