The Rise of Fiscal States is a groundbreaking collection of country studies that examines the formation of fiscal states in Eurasia over the very long run. The editors are Bartolomé Yun-Casalilla, Head of the Department of History and Civilization at the European University Institute, and Patrick O'Brien, Professor of Global Economic History at the London School of Economics. Yun-Casalilla and O'Brien single out Francisco Comín Comín, Professor of Economic History at the Universidad de Alcalà, for his unique supporting role. The other fifteen contributors are established economic historians.

The global, comparative nature of this work is its key strength. The editors and in particular Patrick O'Brien deserve great credit for both their intellectual vision and for their tactical ability to bring this vast and long-standing project to fruition. Two fundamental lessons emerge from this exercise. First, effective fiscal states—that is, central governments that have access to stable revenue streams and can borrow without threats of default—are a relatively recent historical development. The main problem for most states prior to 1800 was to eliminate local tax privileges and establish uniform tax systems. Put bluntly, the delegation of tax rights to local elites created major headaches for much of recorded history. Until states could establish decent levels of internal and external order and administrative capacity, fiscal “federalism” was not a realistic—or even relevant—solution to tax woes.

The second fundamental lesson concerns the centrality of external security threats and interstate warfare. Threats and wars promoted fiscal innovations throughout Europe and Asia alike. Unsurprisingly, most state funds were spent on the military. Was there ever a mighty economic state in the absence of a mighty fiscal (and military) one? This book's findings indicate that the answer is no, and, furthermore, that there is a general ordering to the establishment of efficient institutions. Fiscal prowess tends to precede and underpin economic prowess, and not vice versa. The book's findings imply that differences in fiscal centralization are an important cause of differences in economic development across place and time.

The book is divided into four parts according to geography: North Atlantic Europe (the Netherlands, the Habsburg Low Countries and Belgium, France, and Britain), Central and Eastern Europe (the German territories, the Austrian Empire, and Russia), South Atlantic Europe and the Mediterranean (Portugal, Spain, the Italian territories, and the Ottoman Empire), and Asia (China, Japan, and Mughal and British India). Each chapter typically describes the basic fiscal and political institutions, the tax burden, base, and structure, the role of public debt, expenditure patterns, and the economic effects of fiscal policies.

Part I includes core European states. The leadoff chapter by Wantje Fritschy, Marjolein ‘t Hart, and Edwin Horlings is an informative and well-written account of over 400 years of Dutch fiscal history. The authors highlight the fiscal efficiency of the seventeenth-century Republic. The contribution by Richard Bonney on France examines a key paradox: although seventeenth- and eighteenth-century France had the largest amount of taxpayers and the biggest land army in Europe, it also had the most fiscal exemptions. The chapter by Martin Daunton on Britain addresses the flip side of this paradox. How did Britain manage to “out-tax, out-borrow, and out-gun” France? His answer concerns the lack of consent and legitimacy of French taxation. By contrast, the parliament in Britain was a regular forum to negotiate tax changes. Franchise extension, political leadership, and professional societies for tax lawyers and accountants also created a high level of trust, which was a distinct feature of the British tax system. The English-language literature on Belgian fiscal history is small, making the contribution by Paul Janssens a welcome one. However, I found the Belgium chapter to be unstructured. Furthermore, there were only two data points for the eighteenth century (1766 and 1782).

Part II moves east. The contribution by Michael North on the German territories spans the mid-1300s to the early 1900s, from the rise of the first imperial and Hanseatic cities to the territorial state of Prussia. This chapter presents a wealth of details. The contribution by Renate Pieper on the Austrian Empire argues that state-building was not a precondition for prosperity. Although the Austrian fiscal regime was decentralized, it survived and expanded for several centuries. Given the empire's large internal differences in culture, economics, ethnicity, and politics, perhaps this solution was the best feasible outcome. The chapter by Peter Garrell argues that Russia was “mighty but poor” and highlights the vicious circle whereby low revenues led to small administrative capacity. This chapter provides a detailed overview of the various shortcomings of the Tsarist fiscal system.

Part III heads south. The contribution by Eugenia Mata is a thorough account of tiny Portugal's rise and fall as a dominant sea power. The chapter on Spain by Yun-Casalilla and Comín Comín has a detailed and informative discussion of “negotiated absolutism,” or fiscal fragmentation, under the Old Regime. Traditional tax methods and exemptions persisted in Spain through the nineteenth century. There are two contributions for the Italian territories. Luciano Pezzolo compares the public finances of republics (e.g., Venice) and principalities (e.g., the state of Milan) from the fifteenth to the nineteenth centuries. He offers novel interest rate data and an interesting discussion of the political economy of tax exemptions. Fausto Piola Caselli examines the Papal States, with an emphasis on the efficiency of public finances—perhaps surprising for an “absolutist” regime—and the centrality of the city of Rome. In his innovative chapter, Şveket Pamuk opens the “black box” of Ottoman public finances. He argues that fiscal pragmatism and flexibility were the main reasons for the empire's long survival. Unlike in Europe, Ottoman elites were able to make successful modernizing reforms while still retaining the traditional order.

Part IV travels to Asia. There are two chapters for China. The first, by Kent Deng, runs from the third century BC to World War I. His narrative is rich and there is a nice array of data. Deng argues that nomadic threats of attack generated the need for the Chinese fiscal state and the subsequent construction of the Great Wall. The second China chapter, by R. Bin Wong, examines how traditional ideas of good governance, based on low taxation and social transfers that created similar prosperity levels empire-wide, were undermined in the nineteenth century. While the traditional fiscal system was sufficient to overcome the nomads, new threats from the West demanded fiscal modernization. Wong makes insightful comparisons with Europe throughout this chapter. The contribution by Masaki Nakabayashi on Japan spans 700 years, from 1200 to 1914. However, according to Nakabayashi, fiscal centralization did not take place until the end of this period in 1871. Nakabayashi provides detailed data appendices, and I would have liked to see more appendices of this sort throughout the book. My wish list would also include comparable time series for revenues from 1500 onward, although I recognize the difficulty of this task. Finally, the chapter by the late John Richards compares the public finances of the Mughal Empire in India with its British successor. While there were importance similarities between the two states—for instance, both were autocracies ruled by single individuals—the British regime alone relied heavily on public debt and, in a related fashion, was required by parliament to provide regular, detailed, and public fiscal reports.