Double Entry
How the merchants of Venice created modern finance
Format:Paperback
Publisher:Allen & Unwin
Published:2nd May '13
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A lively investigation of the origins of double-entry bookkeeping and the conflicted role it plays in modern finance.
Filled with colourful characters and history, Double Entry takes us from the ancient origins of accounting in Mesopotamia to the frontiers of modern finance. At the heart of the story is double-entry bookkeeping: the first system that allowed merchants to actually measure the worth of their businesses. Luca Pacioli -- monk, mathematician, alchemist, and friend of Leonardo da Vinci -- adapted Arabic mathematics to formulate a system that could work across all trades and nations.
As Jane Gleeson-White reveals, double-entry accounting was nothing short of revolutionary: it fuelled the Renaissance, enabled capitalism to flourish, and created the global economy. Kuznets and Keynes used it to formulate GDP, the measure of a nation's wealth. Yet double-entry accounting has had its failures. With the cost of sudden corporate collapses such as Royal Bank of Scotland and Lehman Brothers, and its disregard of environmental and human factors, the time may have come to rethink it for the twenty-first century.
Entertaining and informative * The Economist *
A lively history. * The New Yorker *
Ms. Gleeson-White's narrative in "Double Entry" is clear and approachable. The complexities of accounting are lucidly presented. * Wall Street Journal *
A well-researched history * Management Today *
A thoughtful and multifaceted work of history, touching on subjects as diverse as Christianity, mathematics, company law and fine arts. * The Australian *
ISBN: 9781743311493
Dimensions: 198mm x 129mm x 22mm
Weight: 287g
304 pages
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