Review by Choice Review
Gleeson-White delivers a readable, well-researched history of double-entry bookkeeping, placing it not only in economic perspective but also social and historical perspective. She weaves a fascinating tale of the rise of "Venetian style" accounting against a backdrop of the invention of the printing press, the replacement of Roman numerals with Arabic numbers, and the diffusion of education to the masses through cheap publication. She quickly moves forward in time, suggesting that many of the tenets described 500 years ago are largely to blame for the lack of accounting transparency that plagued the financial meltdown and economic crisis of the last decade. The book falters here, as the author leaves the tale she has spun surrounding double-entry bookkeeping and ends with an entreaty to consider alternatives to the standard calculation of GDP to value environmental and sociocultural goods. That said, the book is valuable for the financial history alone. For those seeking an understanding of the problems with imputing social value from GDP, one should instead turn to the multiple works of Marilyn Waring or to Eric Davidson's You Can't Eat GNP (2000). Summing Up: Recommended. All readership levels. B. J. Peterson Central College
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Booklist Review
Double-entry bookkeeping was the first system that allowed merchants to actually measure the worth of their business. Gleeson-White, with a background in economics and accounting, traces the story of double-entry bookkeeping from its first known origins, in the late-thirteenth century, to its role in the twenty-first-century global economy. Beginning with the call to free Jerusalem from Islam at the end of the eleventh century, Crusaders swept across Europe, and northern Italy became the main route for warriors, with business and trade flourishing. In response to the growing complexity of business dealings, a new kind of record keeping began, was perfected by the merchants of Venice, was published as a printed treatise in 1494, and today is what we know as double-entry accounting. Yet the story of double-entry accounting has had notable failures in the recent past, with the Enron Corporation scandals in 2001, the collapse of Arthur Andersen in 2002, and the demise of Lehman Brothers in 2007. This book will appeal to history and business students.--Whaley, Mary Copyright 2010 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Gleeson-White offers a lively and elegantly written account of the history of double-entry bookkeeping. Though the topic hardly sounds intriguing, the author makes ledgers and numbers come alive. As she writes: "Our urge to account--to measure and record our wealth--is one of the oldest human impulses." Gleeson-White, who holds degrees in economics and accounting, describes in vibrant and engaging prose how early writing systems were shaped by clay counting tokens, and how the development of the double-entry system, derived from Arabic mathematics, revolutionized commerce and capitalism in Renaissance Italy and contributed to the development of today's global economy. In a spellbinding historical narrative, the author traces the system from Luca Pacioli's pioneering accounting treatise, "Summa de arithmetica, geometria, proportione et proportionalita," to the Industrial Revolution, when the profession of "chartered accountant" was established. Moving into modern times, Gleeson-White details how shortcomings in the system and "gaping holes in the Sarbanes-Oxley Act" and other regulations that contributed to recent corporate collapses, such as Enron and WorldCom.This dynamic examination of the impact and legacy of double-entry bookkeeping is sure to appeal to those in the accounting profession, business leaders, and history buffs, and will likely become required reading in business school curricula. Agent: Wenona Byrne, Allen & Unwin. (Oct.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
Though a history of accounting might sound like dry reading, that is not the case in this narrative of the birth of double-entry bookkeeping in 15th-century Venice. Gleeson-White (Australian Classics: 50 Great Writers and Their Celebrated Works) tells the story of double-entry bookkeeping to show the historical importance of keeping accounts, not only of cash and profits but also of resources. She begins with Italian friar and mathematician Luca Pacioli (1445-1517) and the treatise in which he first codified the concept. His process survived basically unchanged until the Industrial Revolution, when it was tested by the rise of the corporation, which increased demands on record keeping. Gleeson-White tracks double-entry bookkeeping all the way through the economic crisis of 2008 and explains current trends to create more qualitative measures that rate a country or company's worth. -VERDICT With little mathematics or accounting described in its pages, this is not a technical work. The book instead explains how accounting, a natural human instinct, became a profession. Recommended for readers interested in the origins of modern accounting and how that history relates to the recent financial near collapse.-Elizabeth Nelson, Honeywell UOP Lib., Des Plaines, IL (c) Copyright 2012. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Gleeson-White (Australian Classics: 50 Great Writers and Their Celebration Works, 2007, etc.) finds the origins of double-entry bookkeeping in Renaissance mathematics and art. The author covers a broad historical sweep, from ancient Mesopotamia and Hammurabi's Code to the accounting disasters and financial collapses represented by Enron and the Royal Bank of Scotland, whose books were nowhere near adequate representations of the company's position. But Gleeson-White centers the narrative on the convergence of the modern history of mathematics, great art and artists and business organization. She focuses on a relation of influence between Fibonacci, discoverer of the eponymous series, and Luca Pacioli, geometer, mathematical researcher and collaborator of Leonardo da Vinci. Pacioli was the author of a treatise on double-entry bookkeeping, which was published in his Summa on mathematics in 1494. His system discussed the proper use of three related volumes of records wherein initial entries, journaling and ledger entries were formulated. Profit and loss were calculable in detail by account. Gleeson-White names this Venetian accounting, distinguishing herself from others who attribute the system to Florentines. She presents Pacioli's system as the basis for manufacturers' efforts to reconcile the double-entry system, which was based on trade, with industrial manufacturing and the production of new wealth rather than the exchange of existing products. The author maintains that the origins of capitalism are tightly intertwined with the development of double-entry bookkeeping, and that joint-stock companies and dividend payments are spinoffs. A stimulating approach that presents a compelling outline for further detailed review.]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
