Richard L. Kaplan (Illinois) has published a Review of Death by a Thousand Cuts: The Fight over Taxing Inherited Wealth (Princeton University Press, 2005) (by Michael J. Graetz & Ian Shapiro), 58 Nat’l Tax J. 831 (Dec. 2005).  Here is the abstract:

Instead of rehashing the tired arguments about whether or not the estate tax should exist, these scholars undertook an incredible series of high–level interviews with the leading actors involved in this critical debate. The result is an easily accessible but highly insightful examination of the tax climate in early 21st century America. It is a book with harrowing implications for Social Security and for the role of government more generally. At bottom, it is an indispensable guide to the realpolitik of modern tax policy and should be required reading for any analyst who hopes to understand the current lay of the political land.