The Great Tax Wars: Lincoln to Wilson--The Fierce Battles over Money and Power That Transformed the Nation (Hardcover)

The Great Tax Wars: Lincoln--Teddy Roosevelt--Wilson How the Income Tax Transformed America by Steven R. Weisman  (5)  $12.00

Lincoln Unmasked: What You're Not Supposed to Know About Dishonest Abe by Thomas Dilorenzo  (39)  $10.36

Federal Taxation in America: A Short History (Woodrow Wilson Center Press) by W. Elliot Brownlee  (4)  $20.63

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From Publishers Weekly
Must the story of taxes be taxing? Apparently not. Weisman, a New York Times editorial writer, turns the usually leaden story of income taxes, tariffs, wealth redistribution and the politics of finance into an educational and readable tale. He starts, as he must, with the Civil War income tax, and progresses through the Gilded Age and the years of Presidents Theodore Roosevelt, Wilson and Taft to the 16th Amendment of 1913, which gave sanction to income taxes after the Supreme Court had outlawed them. While the story is a serious one, tax battles gave rise to much laughable drivel, which Weisman reports with delicious relish. Sometimes, however, his overattention to detail obscures his focus, such as in his discussion of the economics of the Civil War, and he slights the states, where many innovations in taxes were born. In choosing color over analysis, he misses opportunities to ask important questions, such as why the Confederacy, claiming distinctiveness as well as independence from the North, implemented Northern-style taxes. What Weisman does make clear is that since 1920, the debate over the income tax ("one of the most important progressive achievements in the making of modern America") has never strayed far from the question of tax rates. It's hard to see how we'll ever escape that debate, he says, because it arises from different conceptions of the nation's promise. This is an important, relevant and well-written story, even if, in the end, it may prove not quite satisfactory to serious historians.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
There is double meaning to the "tax wars" mentioned in the title. First, there are the class wars over the establishment of a graduated tax on incomes; second, there are the military encounters (the Civil War and World War I) responsible for the enactment, and ultimate acceptance, of income tax legislation. Weisman, a veteran New York Times journalist and editorial writer, provides a carefully researched, thoroughly documented history explaining the course of the political debates, Supreme Court decisions, and political party alignments that ultimately resulted in ratification of the 16th Amendment, permitting Congress to "lay and collect taxes on incomes." He begins by providing background on the temporary income tax levied by Lincoln to support the Civil War, then describes the 19th-century battles against maintaining tariffs on popular goods, which were favored by the powerful bankers and industrialists. Finally, Weisman shows how populism, progressivism, and the voracious financial demands of the "War To End All Wars" produced a new federal government revenue structure through Wilson's enactment of the War Revenue Act of 1917. What results is a balanced, highly readable book. Recommended for academic and larger public Libraries.
Jill Ortner, SUNY at Buffalo Lib.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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