Having finished 1984 a matter of hours before reading this book, I found a slew of similarities that I would not have picked up on otherwise. In this installment of the Uncle Eric series, Maybury warns us of the current state of government and where we are headed in the near future if we do not watch out. Many of these 'facts' surprised me. According to the author, taxes are not taken to provide services, but rather services are provided as an excuse to take taxes. The way modern American government is portrayed through this work, I have no trouble believing that soon enough we will turn into a violent dictatorship, as portrayed in 1984.

Though, ashamed as I am to say that I learned quite a bit of this book as it is written for grade school children, I also have to point out that this book didn't sit quite right with me. Highly opinionated, the author claims that government isn't as good as it is made out to be and he even goes so far as to propose that we would be better off with no government at all. As the beginning of this work claims that it intends to debunk myths about government, I feel that it put a bit too much personal politics in to be considered an objective learning source. ( )

Once again, Uncle Eric explains clearly and concisely the fundamentals we have forgotten. He focuses this time on our system of justice, especially the abandonment of common and higher law. If more people understood these concepts, our world would improve. He addresses that there are some unresolved problems, and offers some direction toward solving them (example: capital punishment completely ignores the tradition of restitution). This book reminds us that democracy can easily become a tyranny of the majority. The French Revolution exemplifies this in horrific form. ( )