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The Rise of the Fiscal State in Europe c.1200-1815

Richard Bonney editor

Format:Hardback

Publisher:Oxford University Press

Published:2nd Sep '99

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The Rise of the Fiscal State in Europe c.1200-1815 cover

In this volume an international team of scholars builds up a comprehensive analysis of the fiscal history of Europe over six centuries. It forms a fundamental starting-point for an understanding of the distinctiveness of the emerging European states, and highlights the issue of fiscal power as an essential prerequisite for the development of the modern state. The study underlines the importance of technical developments by the state, its capacity to innovate, and, however imperfect the techniques, the greater detail and sophistication of accounting practice towards the end of the period. New taxes had been developed, new wealth had been tapped, new mechanisms of enforcement had been established. In general, these developments were made in western Europe; the lack of progress in some fiscal systems, especially those in eastern Europe, is an issue of historical importance in its own right and lends particular significance to the chapters on Poland and Russia. By the eighteenth century `mountains of debt' and high debt-revenue ratios had become the norm in western Europe, yet in the east only Russia was able to adapt to the western model by 1815. The capacity of governments to borrow, and the interaction of the constraints on borrowing and the power to tax had become the real test of the fiscal powers of the `modern state' by 1800-15.

the fifteen contributors have published much in their fields, and their collective scholarly authority lends value to this book. It deserves, indeed, the approbation of the European Union, and the Presses universitaires de France might proudly and promptly publish it in French * American Historical Review (Oct 2000) *
By covering such an extended range of 'states' this volume presents a unique guide to national fiscal institutions and a basis for comparing their different character and evolution. * G. L. Harris, EHR *
The overall organisation and breadth of this collection on Europes fiscal history are as impressive as the authors credentials ... this is a fine book. * A.Barrett, Choice, July/Aug 00, Vol.37, No.11/12. *

ISBN: 9780198204022

Dimensions: 242mm x 162mm x 33mm

Weight: 913g

540 pages