Can a book about tax history be a page-turner? You wouldn’t think so. But Give and Take is full of surprises. A Canadian millionaire who embraced the new federal income tax in 1917. A socialist hero, J.S. Woodsworth, who deplored the burden of big government. Most surprising of all, Give and Take reveals that taxes deliver something more than armies and schools. They build democracy.

Tillotson launches her story with the 1917 war income tax, takes us through the tumultuous tax fights of the interwar years, proceeds to the remaking of income taxation in the 1940s and onwards, and finishes by offering a fresh angle on the fierce conflicts surrounding tax reform in the 1960s.

Taxes show us the power of the state, and Canadians often resisted that power, disproving the myth that we have always been good loyalists. But Give and Take is neither a simple tale of tax rebels nor a tirade against the taxman. Tillotson argues that Canadians also made real contributions to democracy when they taxed wisely and paid willingly.

Shirley Tillotson has taken a leading role in the writing of Canada’s new political history. Through her many books and articles, she has shown how electoral politics and social politics intersect and influence each other. Her first book, The Public at Play: Gender and the Politics of Recreation in Post-War Ontario, was recognized for its excellence in regional history. Her second book, Contributing Citizens: Modern Charitable Fundraising and the Making of the Welfare State, 1920–66, was shortlisted for national prizes in the social sciences and in Canadian history.

She is an Inglis Professor at the University of King’s College and an adjunct member of the History Department at Dalhousie University.

…this is a path-breaking work that hopefully will lead to other investigations of Canadians’ love/hate relationship with the state, a relationship where taxes generally land in the hate department.