My excellent Conversation with Alan Taylor, on American history

 [[{“value”:”Here is the audio, video, and transcript.  Here is the episode summary: Tyler and Taylor take a walking tour of early history through North America covering the decisions, and ripples of those decisions, that shaped revolution and independence, including why Canada didn’t join the American revolution, why American in turn never invaded Canada (and who
The post My excellent Conversation with Alan Taylor, on American history appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.”}]] 

Here is the audio, video, and transcript.  Here is the episode summary:

Tyler and Taylor take a walking tour of early history through North America covering the decisions, and ripples of those decisions, that shaped revolution and independence, including why Canada didn’t join the American revolution, why American in turn never invaded Canada (and who would’ve won), American’s early obsession with the collapse of the Republic, how democratic the Jacksonians were, Texas/Mexico tensions over escaped African American slaves, America’s refusal to recognize Cuban independence, how many American Tories went north post-revolution, Napoleon III’s war with Mexico, why the US Government considered attacking Canada after the Civil War, and much more.

Here is one excerpt:

COWEN: Now, here’s a quotation from your writings, page 37: “One of the great ironies of the American Revolution was that it led to virtually free land for settlers in British Canada while rendering land more expensive in the United States.” Could you explain that, please?

TAYLOR: Sure. The war was very expensive. All the states and the United States also incurred immense debts. How are you going to pay for that? This is the time when there’s no income tax, and the chief ways in which governments could raise money were on import duties and then on selling land. There was a lot of land, provided you could take it away from native peoples. All of the states and the United States were in the business of trying to sell land, but also they’re reliant within the states on these land taxes. All of these go up, then, to try to finance the war debt.

Whereas in British Canada, the British government is subsidizing the local government. They’re paying the full freight of it, which means that local taxes were much lower there. It also meant that they could afford to basically give away land to attract settlers. They had this notion that if we offer free land to Americans, they will want to leave that new American republic, move back into the British Empire, strengthen Canada, and provide a militia to defend it.

Substantive and interesting throughout.  And can you guess what in his answers surprised me most?

The post My excellent Conversation with Alan Taylor, on American history appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.

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