cover image Double Entry: How the Merchants of Venice Created Modern Finance

Double Entry: How the Merchants of Venice Created Modern Finance

Jane Gleeson-White. Norton, $26.95 (304p) ISBN 978-0-393-08896-0

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%E2%80%94to measure and record our wealth%E2%80%94is 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 proportionalit%C3%A0," 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.)