Federal Taxation in America

W. Elliot Brownlee's books include The Political Economy of Transnational Tax Reform: The Shoup Mission to Japan (co-edited), Federal Taxation in America: A Short History, The Reagan Presidency: Pragmatic Conservatism and its Legacies (co-edited), Funding the Modern American State: The Rise and Fall of the Era of Easy Finance, 1941–1995, Dynamics of Ascent: A History of the American Economy, Women in the American Economy: A Documentary History, 1675–1929 (with Mary M. Brownlee), and Progressivism and Economic Growth: The Wisconsin Income Tax, 1911–1929. Brownlee has held visiting professor appointments at Princeton University, New Jersey, the University of Tokyo, and Yokohama National University, Japan. He was a Bicentennial Lecturer, the US Department of the Treasury and has been a fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and the Charles Warren Center, Harvard University, Massachusetts.

'Brownlee has long been the Dean of tax historians in this country and Federal Taxation in America has been an indispensable resource for generations of scholars. By capturing the broad themes without leaving the reader lost in a sea of minutiae, it is both sophisticated and accessible. Even in its third edition, the book remains as fresh and insightful as it ever was. Indeed, in examining the latest tax regime, which Brownlee dubs retro-liberal, and situating it within the broader history of taxation, the book may say as much about the future of taxation as it does about the past.' Steven A. Bank, Paul Hastings Professor of Business Law, University of California, Los Angeles

• 1. Anglo-American regimes, 1607–1788; 2. Creating a modern fiscal state, 1788–1861; 3. The Civil War regime, 1861–1916; 4. The World War I regime, 1916–35; 5. Roosevelt's regimes, 1935–45; 6. The era of easy finance, 1945–80; 7. 'Reagan Revolution', 1980–86; 8. Fiscal consolidation and revival of the old tax regime, 1986–2000; 9. Victory for a retro-liberal regime, 2000–9; 10. Fiscal paralysis, 2009–15.