Andrew Monson

Fiscal Regimes and the Political Economy of Premodern States Andrew Monson

Marc Notes: This volume presents a non-Eurocentric, global survey of taxation in the premodern world. What emerges is a rich variety of institutions - including experiments with sophisticated instruments such as sovereign debt and fiduciary money - challenging the notion of a typical premodern stage of fiscal development. The studies presented, by scholars from a diverse range of fields, reveal patterns and correlations across widely dispersed societies that also shed light on the basic factors driving the intensification, abatement, and innovation of fiscal regimes. Brief Description: The first ever global survey of tax systems and their social and political contexts in premodern world history. Table of Contents: Introduction; 1. Studying fiscal regimes Andrew Monson and Walter Scheidel; Part I. Diversity and Commonalities in Early Extraction Regimes: 2. The Inka empire Terence N. D'Altroy; 3. The Aztec empire Michael E. Smith; 4. The Ancient Near East and Egypt Michael Jursa and Juan Carlos Morena Garcia; Part II. Determinants of Intensification and Abatement: 5. Hellenistic empires Andrew Monson; 6. The Roman republic James Tan; 7. The early Roman monarchy Walter Scheidel; 8. The later Roman empire Gilles Bransbourg; 9. Early imperial China, from Qin/Han through Tang Mark E. Lewis; 10. Imperial China under the Song and late Qing Kent Gang Deng; Part III. Divergent Trends among Established Regimes: 11. Late Rome, Byzantium and early medieval western Europe John Haldon; 12. The Middle East in Islamic late antiquity Hugh Kennedy; 13. The Ottoman empire Metin M. Co gel; 14. Early modern Japan Philip C. Brown; Part IV. Fragmented Political Ecologies and Institutional Innovation: 15. The Greek polis and koinon Emily Mackil; 16. Classical Athens Josiah Ober; 17. Why did public debt originate in Europe? David Stasavage; Part V. Comparative Perspectives and New Frontiers: 18. Tributary empires and the New Fiscal Sociology: some comparative reflections Peter F. Bang; 19. Interpreting the comparative history of fiscal regimes Edgar Kiser and Margaret Levi."

Contributor Bio:  Monson, Andrew Andrew Monson is Associate Professor of Classics at New York University. While co-editing this volume, he has held the Alexander von Humboldt Fellowship for Experienced Researchers at the University of Heidelberg as well as the Charles A. Ryskamp Fellowship of the American Council of Learned Societies. He is the author of From the Ptolemies to the Romans: Political and Economic Change in Egypt (2012) and Agriculture and Taxation in Early Ptolemaic Egypt: Demotic Land Surveys and Accounts (2012). Contributor Bio:  Scheidel, Walter Walter Scheidel is Dickason Professor in the Humanities and Professor of Classics and History at Stanford University. His publications include Measuring Sex, Age and Death in the Roman Empire (1996), Death on the Nile: Disease and the Demography of Roman Egypt (2001) and, as editor, Debating Roman Demography (2001) and The Ancient Economy (2002, with Sitta von Reden).