Trusting Leviathan
Martin Daunton’s major study of the politics of taxation in the ‘long
nineteenth century’ examines the complex financial relationship be-
tween the state and its citizens. Around , taxes stood at per
cent of national income; by the outbreak of the First World War, they
had fallen to less than half of their previous level. The process of fiscal
containment resulted in a high level of trust in the financial rectitude of
the government and in the equity of the tax system, contributing to the
political legitimacy of the British state in the second half of the nine-
teenth century. As a result, the state was able to fund the massive
enterprises of war and welfare in the twentieth century. Combining new
research with a comprehensive survey of existing knowledge, this lucid
and wide-ranging book represents a major contribution to our under-
standing of Victorian and Edwardian Britain.
Martin Daunton is a fellow of Churchill College and professor of
economic history at the University of Cambridge. He is the author of
Progress and Poverty: An Economic and Social History of Britain, 1700–
1850 (), and editor of Volume III of The Cambridge Urban History of
Britain ().
© Cambridge University Press www.cambridge.org
Cambridge University Press
978-0-521-03748-8 - Trusting Leviathan: The Politics of Taxation in Britain,
1799-1914
Martin Daunton
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