In addition to asking Rome for more money to defend the Mediterranean, Philip also pressed for higher taxes from the people of the Low Countries to pay for their own defense. Castile could no longer send more money there. It had already done so intensively between 1556 and 1559 to defeat France. The Castilian elites were unwilling to continue paying for wars they did not consider their own. Their Flemish subjects, however, were reluctant to accept this tax increase, especially in a context of religious repression. Various political and institutional problems prevented Philip from achieving the tax reform he intended. What began as a revolt ended up as a costly and endless war that demanded an even greater financial effort from Castile and determined the rest of the reign.

Abstract: This chapter reviews the meaning of ‘deserts’ both in modern and ancient terms, while emphasizing the uniqueness and complexity of local conditions within the deserts in close proximity to the Mediterranean. It argues that although geographically speaking arid spaces may not seem sustainable environments for inhabitation, exchange, and contacts, local conditions vary considerably, and larger deserts such as those of North Africa, the Near East, or the Arabian Peninsula must be analysed carefully. In fact, archaeological work in the past two decades has effectively shown the extent to which the deserts were thriving in Antiquity.

Americans have struggled to reconcile capitalism and war. Over three centuries of history, they have grappled with fundamental tensions between capitalism and security. The combination of war and capitalism often created disruptions and deep inequities that ordinary Americans and their leaders decided must be moderated for the sake of a more successful and politically sustainable war effort. For much of the nation’s history, capitalism was understood to be an insufficient provider of security; the U.S. military economy was semi-socialized, in both peacetime and wartime. But as the record of recent decades has highlighted, Americans have not experienced an ever-higher ratcheting of regulation and socialism, with each new war, over the long run. Rather, the historical record suggests that many postwar demobilizations served to reinforce capitalism. For the nation’s entire history, struggles over the economics of war and national security have been important parts of U.S. political development. This will continue to be the case in the current century, as Americans battle over economic policy and fight new wars, domestically and abroad.

Agglomeration effects and an abundant supply of skilled workers were not the only reasons Britain industrialized first. Its political institutions also gave it a century’s lead over the rest of western Europe. By the early 1700s, it had a national representative body – Parliament – and something approaching a unified legal and fiscal system. Parliament could pass legislation valid anywhere in Britain, and it allowed Britain to raise more tax revenue and borrow at a lower cost. The revenue let Britain win wars and garner the lion’s share of intercontinental trade as spoils of victory, which spurred innovation. Parliament also facilitated lobbying by entrepreneurs, and it could pass acts that rearranged property rights to improve transportation and agriculture, with a credible promise of compensation for property owners. The legislation helped entrepreneurs build canals and toll roads, which greatly improved transportation. The rest of northwestern Europe had wait until at least the French Revolution to have similar institutional advantages. The delay took a significant economic toll on agriculture and on transportation in Continental Europe, as French evidence shows.

Christians faced the specific problem of reconciling capital punishment with the belief in the sanctity of human life. ‘God made man in his own image’ (Genesis). However the Church, from the time of Constantine, found it advantageous to ally itself with the State in order to forward and exploit its influence and authority. This alliance involved the Church in a cruel penal system: in fact, it introduced a new capital crime, heresy. Such disquiet as there was largely went underground. When dissent was expressed, Jesus was called up as an advocate for the cause, not as a missionary for penal reform (his Kingdom was not of this world), but because of his life, teaching, and vision of a New Age. Of our two Italian abolitionists, the devout Catholic Pelli repeatedly invoked the Christian God and the Sermon on the Mount. Earlier it was a Protestant, Sébastian Castellion, who caused a stir. Castellion campaigned fiercely against the criminalization of heresy, following the brutal execution of Michael Servetus, burned at the stake in 1553 in Calvin’s Geneva. Castellion, however, was striking a blow for freedom of belief rather than for the abolition of capital punishment as such.

This chapter examines how terrorism can affect the public finances. The literature identifies three main ways in which terrorism can affect fiscal outcomes. First, by influencing real economic activity and, thereby, government revenues, fiscal deficits and public debt. Second, by negatively affecting both the tax base and the efficiency of the tax administration. Third, by changing the composition of government spending in favor of military outlays. We confirm the importance of these three channels through new research on the impact of major terrorism shocks on macroeconomic and fiscal variables´ dynamics using an unbalanced panel of 191 heterogeneous countries from 1970 to 2018. We find that a terrorist shock lowers a country’s real GDP as well as government tax revenues and raises the debt-to-GDP ratio. The composition of government spending shifts in favor of military spending. Low-income countries are affected more than both emerging market and advanced economies.

This chapter offers a global perspective on Indian education in the colonial era. Indian literacy was significantly below Western Europe in 1800 when adult English literacy (53%) was ten times higher than that of India (estimated to be 6%). While schooling and literacy increased between 1870 and 1940, improvement in India was small compared to the rest of the world. Low income, low fiscal capacity and being a colony all constrained colonial India’s ability to expand mass education, along with norms, for example, that undervalued female education.

Spring 1971 represented the final consequential leftist and radical impact on the Vietnam antiwar movement. The spring offensive demonstrations took place in a compressed two-week period in Washington, DC. Veterans also played a key role in revealing American war crimes. Liberals maintained antiwar pressure largely by concentrating on the continuing US air war. Allies within the government helped produce the twenty-sixth constitutional amendment lowering the voting age to eighteen. The movement continued evolving during the 1972 presidential contest. National coalitions and mass demonstrations gave way to smaller collaborations and more focused projects. Military veterans conducted war crimes investigations, activists withheld war taxes and pressured corporate militarists, citizens defended First Amendment rights against government disinformation, unique projects provided entertainment and advertising, and the entire movement confronted the air war. As military realities brought the war’s end closer, the antiwar movement mobilized street demonstrations but worked primarily through electoral politics.

This chapter explores the stories of urban and rural protesters, female boycotters and spinners, Black rebels and runaways, and Indigenous combatants who engaged in protests, boycotts, and mob action to assert their political and personal legitimacy on the eve of the American Revolution. The study of material culture demonstrates that the quest for liberty became central to American life through things; objects ranging from the mundane to the elite made the lofty, abstract goals of political protest tangible to men and women throughout the British colonies. Physical artifacts – whether built spaces, printed visuals, homespun fabrics, seized cargo, or tokens of war – illustrated a convergence of material culture and collective action in the 1760s and 1770s. The material culture and performance of protest played an important role in fueling the social and political unrest that pushed the colonies toward revolution.

This chapter contends that Italy was exceptionally wealthy during the Early Empire, both in real and nominal terms. Italy’s prosperity stemmed from several sources: substantial booty, taxes, and rents were diverted from the provinces to the empire’s core; provincial elites engaged in imperial politics were expected to spend lavishly in Rome and its environs; and returns on Italian land were relatively high. Additionally, high prices in Italy for both real estate and commodities augmented Italy’s wealth in nominal terms.

Chapter 13 evaluates the challenges of SDG 12: Responsible Consumption and Production, which aims to reduce economies’ material footprints and related waste emissions to support a shift toward more environmentally responsible practices. Global trends in material resource extraction and waste emissions are reviewed, highlighting increasing per capita resource use, rising resource intensity, and escalating waste emissions. Water, land, and air pollution can impose significant economic costs due to their impacts on human health and well-being and degradation of the stock of natural capital, including ecosystems. Policy options for reducing waste emissions are compared and contrasted. Market-based mechanisms, like taxes or tradable permits, offer cost-effectiveness but may not ensure sufficient environmental protection in uncertain conditions. Conversely, regulations enforced by penalties may be necessary for meeting standards, particularly for hazardous waste, although they can introduce uncertainty about producer costs. Other strategies, such as liability for compensation and environmental assurance bonds, aim to encourage waste reduction, reuse, and recycling.

Chapter 7 explains the range of policy tools decision-makers can use to correct incentives for an oversupply of environmental “bads” and an undersupply of environmental “goods” in markets. There are two critical steps to address the underlying causes of environmental mismanagement. Step 1 involves removing existing policy distortions. Step 2 explains how policy options can be used to correct market failures and compares and contrasts these options. Market-based instruments provide incentives for producers and consumers to reduce or eliminate negative environmental externalities through markets, prices, and other economic means, e.g., Coase Bargaining solutions, cap and trade, taxes, and subsidies. Regulatory-based (command and control) instruments rely on setting a standard, such as emissions or technology adopted, backed by penalties to modify economic behavior. In the absence of government intervention to correct market failures, private sector measures, such as liability, information disclosure, and voluntary agreements, have a role in correcting environmental problems.

The History of the Franks of Gregory of Tours, along with his Saints’ lives, show a world of cities that maps with surprising accuracy onto the administrative world of late Roman Gaul. The squabbling Merovingian kings treat cities almost as stocks and shares, something of value worth fighting over, valued for their resources and taxes and manpower. From the perspective of Gregory as bishop, he and his fellow bishops play a central role in city administration. Yet they too are descendants of the local land-holding elite, with whom their interests align. The idea that city councils have disappeared is based on a misinterpretation of the senatores, who are simply Gregory’s way of describing the old landed elite who held office in cities. The bishop, as representative of the church and its land-holdings, proves to be the key figure in the adaptation of the old order.

There are many different types of regulatory instruments and tools. Chapter 6 classifies and examines regulatory tools according to their underlying technique or ‘modality’ of control or source of influence, examining five such modalities in turn: command, competition, communication, consensus and code (or ‘architecture’). This chapter also considers algorithmic regulation and the role of reputation as a form of regulation.