This dialogue might strike some readers as more amicable than critical, as the two books concur on core assumptions about the comparative politics of taxation and state building. They both prefer a macrosocial analytical framework to explain political institutional outcomes, focus on elite motives and actions as the main causal factor, and provide a historically grounded analysis. Also, both books advance recent scholarship on a neofiscal sociology in comparative state-building theory. Aaron Schneider's review, however, does note two underdeveloped themes in my study of postcommunist tax states, which rightly deserve response.