From the Netherlands to the Ottoman Empire, to Japan and India, this groundbreaking volume confronts the complex and diverse problem of the formation of fiscal states in Eurasia between 1500 and 1914. This series of country case studies from leading economic historians reveals that distinctive features of the fiscal state appeared across the region at different moments in time as a result of multiple independent but often interacting stimuli such as internal competition over resources, European expansion, international trade, globalisation and war. The essays offer a comparative framework for re-examining the causes of economic development across this period and show, for instance, the central role that the more effective fiscal systems of Europe during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries played in the divergence of east and west as well as the very different paths to modernisation taken across the world.
• Covers developments throughout Eurasia revealing the multiple trajectories for the rise of fiscal states • Includes contributions from more than eighteen leading regional experts • A major contribution to current debates in comparative global history
Contents
1. Introduction: the rise of the fiscal state in Eurasia from a global, comparative and transnational perspective BARTOLOMÉ Yun-Casalilla; Part I. North Atlantic Europe: 2. Long-term trends in the fiscal history of the Netherlands, 1515–1913 Wantje Fritschy, MARJOLEIN 't Hart and Edwin Horlings; 3. Taxation in the Habsburg Low Countries and Belgium, 1579–1914 Paul Janssens; 4. The rise of the fiscal state in France, 1500–1914 Richard Bonney; 5. The politics of British taxation, from the Glorious Revolution to the Great War Martin Daunton; Part II. Central and Eastern Europe: 6. Finances and power in the German state system Michael North; 7. Financing an empire: the Austrian composite monarchy, 1650–1848 Renate Pieper; 8. The Russian fiscal state, 1600–1914 Peter Gatrell; Part III. South Atlantic Europe and the Mediterranean: 9. From pioneer mercantile state to ordinary fiscal state: Portugal, 1498–1914 EUGENIA MATA; 10. Spain: from composite monarchy to nation state, 1492–1914. An exceptional case? FRANCISCO Comín Comín and Bartolomé Yun-Casalilla; 11. Republics and principalities in Italy Luciano Pezzolo; 12. The formation of fiscal states in Italy: the Papal States Fausto Piola Caselli; 13. The evolution of fiscal institutions in the Ottoman empire, 1500–1914 Şevket Pamuk; Part IV. Asia: 14. Continuation and efficiency of the Chinese fiscal state, 700 BC–1911 AD Kent Deng; 15. Taxation and good governance in China, 1500–1914 R. Bin Wong; 16. The rise of a Japanese fiscal state Masaki Nakabayashi; 17. Fiscal states in Mughal and British India John F. Richards; 18. Afterword: reflexions on fiscal foundations and contexts for the formation of economically effective Eurasian states from the rise of Venice to the Opium War Patrick K. O'Brien.
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