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Paths toward the Modern Fiscal State: England, Japan, and China . By Wenkai He . Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press , 2013. Pp. 328. ISBN 10: 0674072782 ; ISBN 13: 978-0674072787 .
Book Reviews
Some volumes in the humanities and social sciences claim to be multidisciplinary when in reality, only slight variations of a single discipline are employed. Wenkai He, on the other hand, presents an authentic integration of concepts and research questions from his home discipline of political science with the methods of the historian and the development economist.
The book attempts to explain why late seventeenth- to eighteenth-century England and Meiji Japan did, and late Qing China did not, develop a "modern fiscal state." He begins with a theoretical chapter, followed by one case study chapter of England from 1642 to 1752 and two case study chapters each on Japan 1868-1895 and China 1851-1911. The England chapter relies on the vast secondary literature on state-building and public finance in Early Modern England, and focuses on the few decades after the 1688 revolution. The Japan chapters to a large extent rely on Japanese language secondary source material integrated with some primary materials produced during the vigorous debates on monetary and fiscal matters in...