American Tax Resisters

“Romain Huret’s account of tax resistance since the U.S. Civil War is mainly a narrative, with many compelling and repelling stories of murdered tax officials and paranoid fantasies… The U.S.’ cast of resisters is substantial, and many of them make Sarah Palin look timidly progressive. The Tea Party did not arise from nowhere, but had a long history that Huret explains here with wit and style as he details the myriad forms of Americans’ resistance to paying tax.”—Martin Daunton, Times Higher Education

“American Tax Resisters reminds us that today’s Tea Party is less a direct descendent of the Boston Tea Partiers than the flowering of a movement that started during the Civil War and has been around ever since… Huret recounts how American tax resistance evolved from a cause of the upper crust to one that existed at the fringes of the middle class, and from there moved into the mainstream. By examining the roots of this long-simmering discontent and painting a complex portrait of those discontented, he hopes to spark a debate, on both sides of the Atlantic, about the social function of taxes and their role in mitigating inequality.”—Patrick L. Kennedy, The Boston Globe

“A must-read for all those who care about our democratic future. Romain Huret’s fascinating history of ‘tax resisters’ in the United States allows us to better understand the roots of today’s tax protest movements. To a large extent, America invented the most ambitious form of progressive income taxes over the past century—as well as its most radical opponents. If you want to know why, read this book.”—Thomas Piketty, author of Capital in the Twenty-First Century

“In this important work, Romain Huret reconstructs as no one else has the durable political tradition out of which the Koch brothers, the Tea Partiers, and other prominent tax resisters of our time emerged. A fascinating and indispensable guide to 150 years of movements, personalities, and struggles that have done so much to shape the conservative temper in modern America.”—Gary Gerstle, author of American Crucible: Race and Nation in the Twentieth Century

“Romain Huret has written the definitive account of tax resistance in the United States. Rather than presenting opposition to taxation simply as part of American political culture, he meticulously traces the organizations and activists who fought and negotiated with the government as it developed its capacity to tax income. An important history that reveals the roots of contemporary debate.”—Julian E. Zelizer, author of Governing America