History Repeats (Again?)

It's interesting to note the old cliche that "History Repeats itself." It seems that we as human beings have heard this and, presumably, accepted it. yet it is amazing to me how often I see efforts to re-write history for a variety of reasons - all of which are basically dishonest. Indeed, we can learn valuable lessons from history but only if we will allow ourselves to do so.

Consider this passage from the beginning of chapter nine of the novel Sparrowhawk, Book One: Jack Frake by Edward Cline:

"SMUGGLING WAS A MAJOR ENTERPRISE IN EIGHTEENTH CENTURY ENGLAND, a phenomenon created, aided and abetted by a complex array of import and consumption taxes, imposed by a government that wished to promote prosperity and to tax it too. The import or customs duties were designed to nurture the growth of English industry by adding to the cost of private purchases of foreign-made goods which the government rather wished to be made at home for domestic purchase and export; "consumption" or excise taxes were levied on both English and foreign-made goods for the purpose of raising revenue. It was a matter of robbing Peter to pay Paul who was obliged to pay the Piper; only the Piper seemed to prosper, though his pockets, too, were in fact empty. One major consequence of this policy was to stunt what little prosperity and material progress managed to occur under the combined weights royal, aristocratic and government entitlements and preferments, the endless wars, disastrous financial schemes and rife corruption.

"It also encouraged crime and the corruption of both the taxers and the taxed; as much or more energy was diverted to evading the taxes as was invested in producing things that could be taxed. The evasion attracted men of morak character and the criminally inclined alike, who, knowing nothing throughout their lives but an irrecusable injustice, accepted it as the norm. The first group broke the law from necessity; the second broke it as opportunity.

"The judicial system, though modern in method and the most advanced in Europe, was rooted in large part in the precepts of the medievile period. A man could be hanged for murder, and also for stealing a length of waste silk fabric from his employer or an armful of discarded wood chips from a shipyard. A woman could be hanged for picking a few schillings from another's pocket, or for harboring a man who had stolen a sack of coal or vegetables. On one hand, life and property were revered and protected by an eclectic criteria that recognized no measurement of loss, theft or destruction. On the other, the government and the Crown treated both as chattel."

Hmmmm. Is history repeating itself?

From the back cover of this book:
"Bringing a new perspective to the events leading up to the American Revolution, Sparrowhawk, a series of historical novels, establishes that the Revolution occurred in two stages: the war for self-determination and a more subtle revolution in men's minds many years before the Declaration of Independence."

Published by MacAdam/Cage in 2001. Try macadamcage.com for more information.