The publication of José Antonio Sánchez Román's Taxation and Society in Twentieth-Century Argentina is good news for those interested in the Latin American field of study, and especially in the Southern Cone. The taxation evolution during the Río de la Plata colonial period and the Argentine nineteenth century has received less scholarly attention compared with the more modern period, with the exception of contributions such as those of Roberto Cortés Conde and Marcela Harriague, such that it has deserved a long-term study like the one presented in this book. By analysing changes in taxation policy, the book combines deep research with an explanation of the historical context that allows a reader who does not know Argentina's history in depth to understand the story described by the author. The theoretical approach criticises the idea of a ‘rational’ individual and the rational choice as the only explanatory framework. From the author's perspective, collective behaviour and the activity of institutions like the state play a crucial role. In addition, Sánchez Román rejects the point of view that homogenises the desires of all actors at play. All this sustains the construction of a real history, subjected to a variety of factors and the complexity that characterised it.

In the first chapter, Sánchez Román digs into the different projects to impose an income tax in a country with fiscal support based on taxing foreign trade. In so doing, the author works in two interrelated areas. The first is the stand of the Radical Party that had reached power in 1916 and would continue to rule until 1930. The second is what Tulio Halperin Donghi has called a kind of paralysis of the legislative power – an inability to vote on laws in spite of the many projects presented for discussion in the 1920s. In addition, the chapter analyses the different projects that the same political party in power attempted to issue and reveals the complexity of perspectives within the same political association.

Chapter 2 focuses on the final imposition of income tax in 1932, a measure that did not suffer the resistance one might expect but was tainted with illegitimacy due to the nature of those in power, who reached government after the 1930 coup d’état. In spite of these caveats, according to Sánchez Román, the success of the new tax was important enough to displace foreign trade as the country's main source of income. In addition, this chapter highlights the importance of a group of technocrats in the issuing of economic policies, including the emblematic figure of Raúl Prebisch.

The third chapter is one of the most developed in the book and studies the relationship between Peronism and taxation. According to the author, the Peronist goal of a better distribution of wealth was not based on strong direct taxes, but the government imposed progressivism on the income tax. Indeed, the importance of direct taxes increased during the first two years of Perón's administration but lost weight in the following years. The main changes took place with the imposition of capital gains taxes, and the rural sector was especially hurt. But the principal contribution of this chapter lies in the author's illustration of how little the redistribution policies of Peronism relied on taxation. In a nutshell, government spending during Perón's administration relied more on sources of finance that did not include taxes to forward his welfare system.

The fourth chapter, which covers the period 1955–76, has the revealing title ‘Into the Labyrinth’. The taxation policy undertaken with Peronism continued after the administration's fall, but a new problem arose: inflation. Inflation crushed any fiscal policy with the impossibility of maintaining the value of payments by contributors to the state. In addition, rising prices increased incentives for evasion. Partial successes depended on the successive stabilisation plans. At this time, taxes on exports started to become especially important; imposed as a temporary measure many years before, their role deepened and reached, in 1959, 16 per cent of total income. These taxes, besides being a source of income, were conceived of by those in power as a barrier against inflation, since Argentina's commodity exports coincided with the diet that the Argentine population was consuming. As a policy to favour the rural sectors, constant devaluations were at stake. The ‘solution’ to the fiscal problem created by a decreasing collection of income tax is analysed in chapter 5. The value added tax, the introduction of which coincided with Argentina's economic decline, was gaining importance. And due to its regressive character, the whole idea of a welfare state was put in danger. With his intriguing analysis, Sánchez Román concludes that the era that began with the fall of the Peronist government in 1976 and the beginning of the dictatorship was, to a large extent, the collapse of a fiscal crisis.

Sánchez Román's book represents a fresh contribution to the field of Argentina's history. The book uses varied sources and demonstrates a vast knowledge of the subject in the bibliography. I hope this review will convince potential readers that this is a must-read for those interested in Latin American twentieth-century history. Sánchez Román's book makes a considerable contribution to Argentine history, especially regarding its economic evolution.