With the exception of the Civil War, few events in nineteenth-century US history produced national myths more durable than the Mexican wars. The battle of Fort Alamo in 1836 is part of US national culture. Like any other country, the USA prides itself on its military history. But as the title indicates, this book is different in its main aspect in that, with the pretext of the war of 1846, Towards Modern Public Finance takes an indirect approach to US budgetary history. This publication claims to be the first in-depth study to address the financing of the American–Mexican War of 1846–8, turning the substance of a PhD thesis into a more or less readable book. Whether it has any scientific significance is another matter. The analysis of the US budgetary, financial and banking history has never been neglected by economic and political historians, and much has been written which relates to the period between 1812 and 1861. At any rate, we have here the result of the study of a respectable number of printed records from the US Congress, some manuscripts from the Treasury, the Department of Public debt, some private bankers' papers and a detailed bibliography. Confronted by abundant statistical data, one has the impression that this piece of research has been influenced considerably by modern quantitative approaches to history but does not grapple with the challenge offered. As it is, this book is certainly not a demonstration of what could be made of quantitative sources.

Though not written very elegantly, this book is relatively well balanced in structure. There are nine chapters, six of which (1, 2, 3, 4, 7 and 8) make a substantial contribution to the central theme: the financing of the Mexican war. If these had been published separately, with a more accurate introductory review of the issue and a precise statement of conclusions, it would have been a much better book.

As they are, the outcomes of the investigation are grounded in a serious, albeit dull, analysis of the way the Polk administration faced the realities of a much desired war without measuring its financial costs. The result, like Wagner's Gotterdämmerung, is longer that it needs to be (among other faults). The chronological bounds are set by the Mexican foray into Texas in 1846 and the last issue of the 1848 loan, although in the last chapter and the conclusion, we are invited to follow the men and the consequences of their actions as far as 1913. As for the years 1846–8, Cummings suggests that this period was a milestone in the development of the US Treasury since, under Polk and against his own deep financial principles, the Treasury issued a large number of (more or less funded) Treasury notes in three 20-year loans totalling $49 millions that bankers, led by Corcoran & Riggs of Washington, Peabody and Baring of London, sold directly to mostly American but also European capitalists, earning hefty profits in the process. Other interesting proposals by Cummings include the suggestion that the successful emission and management of the Treasury notes and money transfers led to the acceptance of the recently established Independent Treasury by the American public and a gave it a long lease of life until the institution of the Federal Reserve System in 1913.

However, James Cummings's book combines some valuable merits and serious defects in unequal proportions. It provides a great deal of useful if not always original information about the conditions of the federal finances and the armed forces in the mid-nineteenth-century United States, as well as the consequences thereof when the Mexican war appears not to be the hoped-for walkover. It succeeds in relating this situation to the continuing debate about the adequacy and performance of the federal tax system, particularly its dependence upon customs duties and, as a consequence, its sensibility to tariffs and foreign trade, as well as its effects on the development of a modern banking and monetary system. But all that is well known.

Unfortunately, the reader is likely to be bored by the poor organisation of the book and the relentless accumulation of detail, much of it of doubtful relevance. The chapters analysed above are a reminder of how often historians delve into records which are readily available, acting like someone searching for their keys under the lamppost because the light is better there. But the weakest part is chapters 5 and 6. Both chapters are of limited value since they are a shallow overview of the Mexican side of the problem. Too brief to be of any interest, the chapters are based on a short, unbalanced bibliography, consisting solely of works in English, blending outdated books such as the antiquated study by J. H. Smith with some more accurate ones (by B. A. Tenenbaum, for instance). As a separate study, they cannot be useful since their scope is drastically limited, ignoring not only the Mexican publications but even some in English (such as the well-documented book by Costeloe about the Mexican foreign debt). Here we find a systematically negative opinion about the Mexican reasons for refusing to part with more than a third of their national territory, as well as an unpleasant feeling that Dr Cummings shares Polk's nearly two centuries-old contempt of Mexico even today.

With chapter 9 followed by a vague conclusion, the relevance of the work does not improve markedly. The reader will find some indications about the destiny of the principal actors, Polk's death, Walker's financial misdeeds, and what became of the bankers Corcoran, Riggs and Peabody without adding anything to our knowledge. But the biggest disappointment (notwithstanding the bibliography) is the limited degree of the author's engagement with the main currents of contemporary financial research. As a useful, albeit limited, contribution to American political economy in the making before the Civil War, this book is commendable to sophomore students interested in the ramifications of US financial organisation and the strengthening of the links between the administration and the growing banking community. But its shortcomings and the absence of any comprehensive reflection may prove irksome to specialists of economic or inter-American history.

Finally, the book promises more than it performs. Dr Cummings describes but does not really discuss in depth the developments caused by the costs of the Mexican war on the structural evolution of US federal finances. Never discussing the White House's doubtful rights in the conflict, or examining the process by which the situation imposed the integration of the USA within the Atlantic international credit system, this book is unquestionably useful but surprisingly limited in terms of rational analysis. It yields some fresh insights into the making of modern American finance and the well-known careers of a number of politicians and bankers; but, crucially, it does not makes any important contribution to United States historiography. As it is, it will provide a convenient introduction to interested students.