The Fiscal Military State In Eighteenth Century Europe

In recent decades, historians of early-modern Europe, and above all those who study the eighteenth century, have elaborated the concept of what has been called the 'fiscal-military state'. This is a state whose international effectiveness was founded upon the development of large armed forces, whose performance and supply necessitated both further administrative development and the provision of large sums, the raising of which involved unprecedented levels of taxation and borrowing by governments. The present collection of essays, by leading authorities in their individual fields, all of whom have published widely on their chosen topic, explores the subject of the fiscal-military state by focusing on its leading exemplars in eighteenth-century Europe: Austria, Britain, France, Prussia and Russia. It also includes a chapter on the Savoyard state (the kingdom of Sardinia), a lesser power whose career illuminates by comparison developments elsewhere. In addition, and rather unusually, a further chapter considers the fiscal-military state in a broader, comparative international context, in the arena of international relations. Each chapter provides a summary of the state of knowledge regarding the fiscal-military state debate insofar as it relates to the state under consideration. As well as contributing to that debate, they take matters further by systematically analysing the sources of wealth and income, and the way these were tapped, and the broader impact that this attempt to extract resources had on society and the state, both in the short and longer term. The differing patterns, and the variety of models of fiscal-military state makes for ease of comparison across Europe, making the volume an invaluable resource to both students and researchers alike.

Historically, Spain has often been represented as a financial failure, a state limited by its absolutist monarchy and doomed to fiscal and financial failure without hope of lasting growth. The collapse of the Spanish state at the beginning of the nineteenth century would seem to bear out this view of the limitations of Spain's absolutist state, and this historical school of thought presents the eighteenth century as the last episode in a long history of decline that is directly linked to the failure of the sixteenth-century Spanish imperial absolutist monarchy. This study provides a different perspective, suggesting that in fact during the eighteenth century, Spain's fiscal-military state was reconstructed and grew. It shows how the development of the Spanish fiscal-military state was based on different growth factors to those of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries; and that with this change, most of the state's structure and its relationship with élites and taxpayers altered irrevocably. In the ceaseless search for solutions, the Spanish state applied a wide range of financial and fiscal policies to expand its empire. The research in this book is inspired by current historical discussions, and provides a new perspective on the historical debate that often compares English 'success' with continental 'failure'.

The concept of the 'fiscal-military state', popularised by John Brewer in 1989, has become familiar, even commonplace, to many historians of eighteenth-century England. Yet even at the time of its publication the book caused controversy, and the essays in this volume demonstrate how recent work on fiscal structures, military and naval contractors, on parallel developments in Scotland and Ireland, and on the wider political context, has challenged the fundamentals of this model in increasingly sophisticated and nuanced ways. Beginning with a historiographical introduction that places The Sinews of Power and subsequent work on the fiscal-military state within its wider contexts, and a commentary by John Brewer that responds to the questions raised by this work, the chapters in this volume explore topics as varied as finance and revenue, the interaction of the state with society, the relations between the military and its contractors, and even the utility of the concept of the fiscal-military state. It concludes with an afterword by Professor Stephen Conway, situating the essays in comparative contexts, and highlighting potential avenues for future research. Taken as a whole, this volume offers challenging and imaginative new perspectives on the fiscal-military structures that underpinned the development of modern European states from the eighteenth century onwards.

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First published in 1989. `The book is a distinguished work - of importance to students of governmental development generally. It is written in a fluent, non-technical manner that should reach a wide audience.' American Historical Review.

In recent decades, historians of early-modern Europe, and above all those who study the eighteenth century, have elaborated the concept of what has been called the 'fiscal-military state'. This is a state whose international effectiveness was founded upon the development of large armed forces, whose performance and supply necessitated both further administrative development and the provision of large sums, the raising of which involved unprecedented levels of taxation and borrowing by governments. The present collection of essays, by leading authorities in their individual fields, all of whom have published widely on their chosen topic, explores the subject of the fiscal-military state by focusing on its leading exemplars in eighteenth-century Europe: Austria, Britain, France, Prussia and Russia. It also includes a chapter on the Savoyard state (the kingdom of Sardinia), a lesser power whose career illuminates by comparison developments elsewhere. In addition, and rather unusually, a further chapter considers the fiscal-military state in a broader, comparative international context, in the arena of international relations. Each chapter provides a summary of the state of knowledge regarding the fiscal-military state debate insofar as it relates to the state under consideration. As well as contributing to that debate, they take matters further by systematically analysing the sources of wealth and income, and the way these were tapped, and the broader impact that this attempt to extract resources had on society and the state, both in the short and longer term. The differing patterns, and the variety of models of fiscal-military state makes for ease of comparison across Europe, making the volume an invaluable resource to both students and researchers alike.

In War, Entrepreneurs, and the State, Jeff Fynn-Paul (Leiden) assembles an internationally acclaimed selection of authors to push forward the debate on the role of entrepreneurs in making war and building states in Europe and the Ottoman Empire. Topics covered include logistics, supply, recruitment, and the finance of war. Chapters have been carefully commissioned with an eye towards complementarity. In an introduction co-written with Marjolein ‘t Hart and Griet Vermeesch, Fynn-Paul challenges existing discourses of military entrepreneurialism. A new benchmark is proposed: did states choose to work with entrepreneurs, or to restrict their activities and subvert the market? From the introduction and the individual chapters, a new more expansive vision of the military entrepreneur emerges. Contributors are: Carlos Álvarez-Nogal, Pepijn Brandon, William Caferro, Stephen Conway, Thomas Goossens, Aaron Graham, Rhoads Murphey, David Parrott, Helen Paul, Guy Rowlands, Kahraman Şakul, Marjolein 't Hart, Andrea Thiele, and Rafael Torres Sánchez.

The Military Enlightenment brings to light a radically new narrative both on the Enlightenment and the French armed forces from Louis XIV to Napoleon. Christy Pichichero makes a striking discovery: the Geneva Conventions, post-traumatic stress disorder, the military "band of brothers," and soldierly heroism all found their antecedents in the eighteenth-century French armed forces. Readers of The Military Enlightenment will be startled to learn of the many ways in which French military officers, administrators, and medical personnel advanced ideas of human and political rights, military psychology, and social justice.