The official beginning of the new Millennium, bureaucratically correct on January 1, 2001, gives occasion to reconsider the meanings of that divide in time celebrated globally a while ago. A year into the new century, one is still hard put, in our part of the world, to find public utterances...

"This book represents the first 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...