This book aims to bring state expenditure into the debate over the construction of modern states. It has traditionally been argued that the differences in state development could be put down to the states particular systems and methods for raising warfare resources. Historians have long stressed that the different levels of state development on a world level should be explained in terms of the origin and management of fiscal and financial resources. But this historical research did not pay the same attention to how that income was spent. This book aims to redress the balance by focusing on...