ewalrath's review against another edition
4.0
I enjoyed this book immensely but I read it in tandem with Max Gladstone's Two Serpents Rise and just after finishing Bethany McClean's All The Devils Are Here.
It is more a collection of long essays on the double entry system than a single "plotline" all the way through. Read that way I think it's more enjoyable than being disappointed it isn't all history.
And, regarding the complaints that the title is grandiose and misleading- the author generally doesn't get to pick the title. I don't know if that's the case for this book, but that seems to be the way things go in the non-fiction book world.
It is more a collection of long essays on the double entry system than a single "plotline" all the way through. Read that way I think it's more enjoyable than being disappointed it isn't all history.
And, regarding the complaints that the title is grandiose and misleading- the author generally doesn't get to pick the title. I don't know if that's the case for this book, but that seems to be the way things go in the non-fiction book world.
collegecate's review against another edition
3.0
Interesting and highly readable. This is both a history of double entry accounting (first half) and an analysis of how account does not and cannot actually count the things that matter. Includes a chapter that goes over some of the accounting pitfalls of the 2008 economic crisis but with a skew toward the author's home country of Australia.
auntyjame's review against another edition
3.0
Would actually like to give this 3.5 stars. Admittedly a niche interest, she manages to make the history of accounting interesting. I had some issues with the conclusions she reaches. I think she confuses accounting, a reporting system which admittedly forces a certain logic on things, with the broader political and economic forces impacting society and therefore accounting. Economics changes accounting much more than accounting changes economics.
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