The Sinews of Power: War, Money, and the English State, 1688-1783

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This powerful interpretation of English history provides a completely new framework for understanding how Britain emerged in the eighteenth century as a major international power. Attention is usually paid to the prowess of England's soldiers, the skill and energy of her commerce, the shrewd brilliance of her diplomacy. But here the noted historian John Brewer turns to England's creation of what he calls the modern fiscal-military state, which, he argues, was the single most important transformation in government in early modern times.

Brewer's brilliant analysis makes clear that the drastic increase in Britain's military involvement (and success) in Europe and the expansion of her commercial and imperial interests would not have happened without a concurrent radical increase in taxation, along with a surge in deficit financing and the growth of a substantial public administration. The Sinews of Power becomes, then--among many other things--a pioneering study in the origins of modern financial administration, tax collection, and government bureaucracy (It also casts new light on the reasons for Britain's principal defeat during the otherwise successful years of 1688-1815: the loss of her American colonies).

Warfare and taxes not only reshaped the English economy but led to ever more vocal demands for public information. Special interest groups emerged, making organized efforts to lobby and to influence government policy. At the heart of these dramatic changes lay an issue that is still very much with us today: the tension between a nation's aspirations to be a major power and fear of the domestic consequences of such an ambition--namely, the loss of liberty.