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International Accounting (1st

Edition) Timothy S. Doupnik
and Hector B. Perera Boston:
McGraw-Hill/Irwin, 2007,
xvi+640 pp.+CD, $155.94,
$84.51 (paperback), ISBN-13:
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a
Hannu Schadéwitz
a
Turku School of Economics , Finland
Published online: 15 Apr 2009.

To cite this article: Hannu Schadéwitz (2009) International Accounting (1st Edition)
Timothy S. Doupnik and Hector B. Perera Boston: McGraw-Hill/Irwin, 2007, xvi+640 pp.
+CD, $155.94, $84.51 (paperback), ISBN-13: 978-0-07-250775-1, ISBN-10: 0-07-250775-6,
European Accounting Review, 18:1, 177-179, DOI: 10.1080/09638180902834408

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 European Accounting Review
Vol. 18, No. 1, 177 –186, 2009

Book Reviews

International Accounting (1st Edition)

Timothy S. Doupnik and Hector B. Perera
Boston: McGraw-Hill/Irwin, 2007, xvi þ 640 pp. þ CD, $155.94, $84.51 (pbk),
ISBN-13: 978 0 07 250775 1, ISBN-10: 0 07 250775 6
Downloaded by [Turku University] at 00:22 24 September 2014

This book by two highly esteemed scholars offers a broad overview of financial
accounting across borders, focusing on international business activities. This
review opens with a brief summary of the contents of the book, followed by a
more specific commentary on the subject matter and closes with a discussion
of potential target groups.
The book begins with a creative and insightful illustration of the international
evolution of a corporation, which nicely introduces the reader to the various inter-
national accounting themes a firm will typically face and that are covered in the
book’s 13 chapters. All chapters follow the same straightforward internal structure:
learning objectives, topical narrative, summary and end of chapter assignments.
The Instructor’s Resource CD-ROM comprises a solutions manual, PowerPoint
presentations, computerised test bank, test bank and online learning centre. Separ-
ate name and company indices would have constituted a useful modification to the
current ‘mixed’ index at the end of the book. Although I like the book’s straight-
forward structure, a visual guide to the content of the whole book and its chapters
and their relations would have made a valuable addition early on. Grouping the 13
chapters under suitable part-headings would have added further structure.
Chapter 1 is an introduction to international accounting via the evolution of a
multinational corporation. Chapter 2 deals with worldwide accounting diversity
covering topics such as reasons for accounting diversity, problems caused by it
and the influence of culture on financial reporting. Accounting diversity is pre-
sented in a highly logical fashion: evidence, reasons and problems caused.
Some classifications of accounting systems cited in the book are based on
older material (dating back as far as the 1980s). It would have been useful if
the authors had discussed the suitability of older systems and constructs to the
contemporary situation. Well-recognised classical studies were referenced
rather directly in handling the influence of culture on financial reporting.
Besides direct references, a synthesis of the impact of culture on financial report-
ing is called for. As it stands, the section is (too) challenging for the reader to be

0963-8180 Print/1468-4497 Online/09/010177–9

DOI: 10.1080/09638180902834408
Published by Routledge Journals, Taylor & Francis Ltd on behalf of the EAA.
 178 Book Reviews

able to formulate a coherent picture of these cultural issues, especially their

potential impacts on international financial statement analysis (Chapter 9). The
link between Chapters 2 and 9 is currently weak.
Chapter 3 deals with the international harmonisation of financial reporting.
The chapter begins with the concept of harmonisation, followed by a presentation
of the development of major harmonisation efforts at regional and global levels.
The pros and cons of harmonisation are also discussed.
Chapter 4 handles International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) alone.
The presence of this chapter is sound because almost 100 countries are adopting
IFRS (Ball, 2006). The chapter nicely summarises the requirements of IFRS con-
cerning the recognition and measurement of assets as well as the disclosure of
financial information. The main differences between IFRS and US GAAP (gener-
ally accepted accounting principles) are also covered. As references for this
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chapter show, the research and its findings on IFRS-related matters are barely
covered there. For more advanced international accounting courses in particular,
research and findings are naturally an important part of the curriculum and should
therefore be covered by the instructor in one way or another (some related research
is reviewed in Lindahl and Schadéwitz, 2008). Furthermore, some information
about the potential capital market consequences of IFRS would be relevant.
Chapter 5 compares dis/similarities of financial accounting and its environ-
ments in five economies: People’s Republic of China, Germany, Japan,
Mexico and the UK. The motivation supplied for the selection of these countries
is their economic importance and that they are representative in terms of different
accounting systems used around the world. Their accounting systems are in
addition said to reflect the countries’ unique historical and cultural background.
These are well-grounded reasons to employ these five countries as an example.
The more attentive reader will however note that the material in Chapter 2
(‘Worldwide Accounting Diversity’) does not always cover the People’s Repub-
lic of China and Mexico. The linkage between Chapters 2 and 5 could have been
presented in a more pronounced way.
Chapters 6– 8 deal with other financial reporting issues. Chapter 6 covers
foreign currency transactions and hedging foreign exchange risk. A rich set of
detailed journal entry examples helps master the topic here; the book does not
handle research on the topic per se. The translation of foreign currency financial
statements is presented in Chapter 7. One research-oriented article (published
1988) plus two other references are cited here. Additional financial reporting
issues, such as inflation accounting, consolidated financial statements and
segment reporting, are covered in Chapter 8. Contrary to some other chapters,
a few research articles are employed here, too.
Chapter 9 focuses on the analysis of foreign financial statements from a tech-
nical standpoint. It would have been useful to read, for example, what some of the
critical themes/financial ratios are that should be focused on when analysing
firms/divisions with operations, say, in the emerging markets. I hasten to
admit this would not have been an easy task.
 Book Reviews 179

International taxation and international transfer pricing are discussed in Chap-

ters 10 and 11, respectively. Probably the link between these two chapters could
have been stronger, if indeed separate chapters are considered necessary. Chapter
12 extends the scope of the book to strategic accounting issues in multinational
corporations. This is in line with the stated coverage of the book, namely, the
‘broadly defined area of international accounting’. However, one might question
whether it is necessary to include strategic accounting issues in a book where the
emphasis lies mainly on external, international, financial reporting issues. I think
it would have been useful if the authors had interpreted more how strategic
accounting issues may potentially influence external financial reporting.
The final chapter, Chapter 13, extends the scope of the book by dealing with com-
parative international auditing and corporate governance. Auditing is seen here as a
crucial element of corporate governance. The text focuses on internal and external
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auditing issues, while other themes of corporate governance are given a minor role.
It is important to be aware of the principles around which a book has been com-
piled, and this book is no exception. According to the authors, ‘This book is
designed to be used in a course that attempts to provide an overview of the
broadly defined area of international accounting, but that focuses on the account-
ing issues related to international business activities and foreign operations.’ The
book goes beyond typical financial accounting by including in its content topics
such as strategic accounting and international corporate governance. This is in
line with some other international textbooks, such as Radebaugh et al. (2006).
The book is suitable for (but not limited to) intermediate and advanced level
M.Sc. courses in international accounting. Its numerous real-world examples
and excerpts from recent annual reports should support students’ learning
efforts and make the subject more relevant and enjoyable. The end of chapter
assignments, cases and CD-ROM also suit this purpose. Apart from the university
community, I also warmly recommend this book to those responsible for inter-
national financial accounting activities in business life. Its broad scope should
assist a reader not only with international financial accounting issues but also
with some other more specific themes and useful links.

References
Ball, R. (2006) International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS): pros and cons for investors,
Accounting and Business Research, 36(Special Issue), pp. 5– 27.
Lindahl, F. and Schadéwitz, H. (2008) U.S. GAAP and IFRS: how close is ‘close enough’? Paper pre-
sented at the 31st Annual Congress of the European Accounting Association, Rotterdam, March.
Radebaugh, L. H., Gray, S. J. and Black, E. L. (2006) International Accounting and Multinational
Enterprises, 6th edn (Chichester: Wiley).

Hannu Schadéwitz
Turku School of Economics, Finland
# 2009 Hannu Schadéwitz
 180 Book Reviews

Management Accounting Change: Approaches and Perspectives

Danture Wickramasinghe and Chandana Alawattage
Abingdon: Routledge, 2007, xxii þ 546 pp., £35.14, ISBN: 978 0 415 39331 7
(hbk), 978 0 415 39332 4 (pbk)

Danture Wickramasinghe and Chandana Alawattage’s management accounting

change textbook provides a comprehensive and well-structured discussion of
the main technical, managerial and theoretical developments that have occurred
in the management accounting field since its development in the 19th century up
to the present day. Recognizing that there is a gap between technical textbooks
and academic articles, and that advanced management accounting students
(third- or fourth-year undergraduates and M.Sc. or MBA students) should have
a knowledge of accounting beyond numbers and managerial techniques, the
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authors provide a full overview of the main issues that have been affecting the
management accounting agenda. Their purpose of incorporating practice with
theory immediately sets this textbook apart from other management accounting
texts, which very often tend to deal separately with either the technical develop-
ments or the theoretical frameworks of management accounting. Written with
evident pedagogical concerns in mind, the preface provides the rationale for
the book and instructions for its use. The book has a clear and consistent struc-
ture, containing one introductory chapter and 14 chapters divided into four dis-
tinct parts. The first two parts discuss the technical aspects of management
accounting change from ‘conventional cost accounting to contemporary strategic
management accounting and beyond’, whilst the remaining two parts describe the
theoretical perspectives (the ‘rational’, the ‘interpretive’ and the ‘critical’) which
can be adopted to explain change.
An important strength of the book is the topic it aims to cover – ‘change’.
Change has been seen as an attractive topic, which might explain why in
recent years it has been discussed everywhere and studied from multiple
angles. Management accounting is not an exception to this pervasive phenom-
enon. In the last decade a considerable number of research papers, books, con-
gresses and seminars on how management accounting has changed, whether it
has changed and how change can engender resistance, among many other
aspects of change, have emerged. However, as the authors observe, despite its
popularity the change agenda has not been included in the undergraduate man-
agement accounting syllabus. This book is a valid attempt to reverse this situ-
ation. Throughout this text the authors are able to demonstrate that studying
management accounting change has benefits: it can broaden students’ view of
the world and provide them with a deeper knowledge of management accounting.
Through concise and clear explanations it shows how management accounting
has emerged and developed, and how the adoption of different theoretical
lenses can enrich comprehension of accounting phenomena. Writing a book
about such a complex issue for undergraduates is a challenge which the
authors have successfully accomplished. The book captures their ability to
 Book Reviews 181

address topics usually perceived by students as difficult in a straightforward way,

but without being simplistic. The following comments about each chapter are a
reflection of this.
In the introductory chapter (Chapter 1) the authors provide a good background
for studying the approaches and perspectives addressed in the following chapters.
Several views of management accounting (‘technical-managerial’, ‘pragmatic-
interpretive’ and ‘critical-socioeconomic’) are debated in the chapter, following
the ‘pluralistic’ view presented in the preface. Moreover, the authors stress that
there is no single answer to explain why management accounting has changed.
The explanations depend on the theoretical perspectives adopted, which the
authors categorize into three main fields: ‘rational’, ‘interpretive’ and ‘critical’.
These three theoretical perspectives are briefly but clearly explained and it is
shown how management accounting change is perceived from each of these per-
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spectives. The inclusion of these distinct perspectives in the chapter seems oppor-
tune as it prevents students from getting bogged down in just one single view
from the beginning of the book. However, as I will argue later, there is a
degree of overlap between some of these contentions and the subsequent chap-
ters. Chapters 2– 6 (which form the first part of this textbook) deal with the tech-
nical developments of management accounting from the 1800s until the 1980s,
that is, the ‘mechanistic’ approaches, to use the authors’ terminology. Adopting
an interesting methodology for studying management accounting change, the
authors propose the term ‘mechanistic’ to comprise all the approaches related
to the conventional wisdom of management accounting which persisted until
the 1980s. In a well-argued thesis, the authors explain convincingly how these
‘mechanistic’ approaches are based upon principles such as mechanization in
production technology and production-orientation in management. In Chapters
2 –6 they provide a comprehensive discussion of the emergence of management
accounting in relation to mass production and bureaucracy (Chapter 2), product
costing (Chapter 3), profit planning through budgeting (Chapter 4), management
control through budgeting (Chapter 5) and economic models of decision-making
(Chapter 6). Altogether these chapters provide an integrated and complete view
of the historical, social and economic circumstances in which conventional man-
agement accounting approaches have developed. Some case examples illustrat-
ing product costing and cost allocation (Chapter 3), static budgetary planning
(Chapter 4), flexible budgetary planning, standard costing and analysis of var-
iances (Chapter 5), cost-volume-profit analysis and limiting factor analysis
(Chapter 6) are also included. Chapter 6 has boxes highlighting important con-
cepts of the neoclassical economic model of the firm. All these examples serve
the authors’ pedagogical objectives of boosting students’ technical proficiency
in, and comprehension of, some of the limitations of management accounting
techniques.
The second part of the book comprises Chapters 7 –10. This part covers ‘post-
mechanistic’ management accounting approaches, which according to the
authors can be depicted as the ‘new’ management accounting techniques
 182 Book Reviews

developed since the late 1980s as a result of factors such as the development of
digitalization in technology and customer-orientation in management. All the rel-
evant advances and recent modifications in management accounting are covered
in this part of the book (the authors have not missed a significant innovation).
These are: customer-orientation and flexible manufacturing (Chapter 7), strategic
management accounting (Chapter 8), cost management (Chapter 9) and govern-
ance in new organizations and new management control (Chapter 10). These
chapters provide an adequately integrated and critical view of the dramatic trans-
formations that have occurred at the technological, organizational, political and
ideological levels and their impact on the role of management accounting in
organizations. Several case examples are provided of activity-based techniques
(Chapter 9). Boxes containing extracts of texts on the balanced scorecard
design and implementation (Chapter 8) and on the governing principles of
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bureaucracy (Chapter 10) are also included in this part.

Chapters 11 and 12 form the third part of the book. In this part the rational per-
spectives on management accounting change are clearly presented. Both neoclas-
sical economic (Chapter 11) and contingency theories (Chapter 12) are discussed
in detail. Further theoretical perspectives (interpretive and critical) are addressed
in Part 4 of the book. Part 4 consists of Chapter 13 (which deals with interpret-
ations, institutions and networks in management accounting change), Chapter 14
(which introduces the political economy of management accounting change) and
Chapter 15 (which takes an approach beyond the political economy of manage-
ment accounting change). Though well written there is some repetition of ideas in
these two parts in relation to Parts 1 and 2 of the book. For instance, in Chapter 11
(pp. 373 – 374), the authors debate management accounting history through the
lenses of transaction cost economics. Johnson and Kaplan’s view (1987),
expressed in their book Relevance Lost, is adopted to exemplify how transaction
cost economics regards the evolution of management accounting practices.
However, a similar discussion is included in Chapter 2, on pp. 47 –48. Moreover,
there are some overlaps between Chapter 13, where the authors refer to function-
alism and its flaws (pp. 414 – 419), and earlier chapters (see, for example, Chapter
1, pp. 15– 20 and Chapter 6, p. 164). Also, there is a certain sense of ‘déjà vu’
when reading the end of Chapter 13 (institutional theory) and some parts of Chap-
ters 14 and 15. Some of the explanations provided in these chapters about man-
agement accounting change have already been discussed elsewhere in the book
(e.g. Chapter 2, pp. 48– 50).
A similar structure is adopted for each chapter, which makes it easier for stu-
dents to concentrate on the most relevant sections. In general, all the chapters are
written in a very clear way, most of the time making complex issues simple for
students to understand. At the start of each chapter there is a ‘starting point’
section followed by a section ‘setting the scene’. Here learning objectives and
expected outcomes are clearly set out. Throughout the text the authors provide
boxes (‘key term boxes’) containing definitions of key terms, techniques and
methods covered in each chapter. There are also multiple boxes (‘point in
 Book Reviews 183

focus boxes’) providing adequate summaries of the main aspects addressed by the
authors. These ‘key terms’ and ‘point in focus’ boxes are appropriately presented
and are useful for guiding students when they revise. Apart from this, and as a
means to test and encourage students to think carefully about what they have
read, two types of chapter-end questions are included in each of the book’s 15
chapters. The first set of questions, labelled by the authors as ‘Have You Under-
stood the Chapter?’, seek mainly to test students’ understanding of the topics
covered in the text. A careful reading of the chapter provides the right answers
to these questions. The second set of questions, under the heading ‘Beyond the
Chapter’, contains open critical questions aimed at broadening students’ knowl-
edge of management accounting change. They challenge students to read
additional texts, the most relevant of which are listed in the ‘further reading’ sec-
tions. These supplementary readings consist of scientific journals and books
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which are fully referenced at the end of the book and altogether provide the stu-
dents with adequate insights into the issues covered in the book. As a criticism of
the structure adopted by the authors I would mention the lack of a section sum-
marizing each chapter (at present only Chapters 9, 10, 12, 13 and 15 have a
‘summing up’ section). The inclusion of this sort of section has clear benefits
to students when revising chapters, particularly the longest ones.
Overall this textbook fully accomplishes its objective of guiding management
accounting students in their reading. Despite some repetitions between some
chapters (which are difficult to avoid in such a long textbook), it provides a com-
prehensive approach to making management accounting change more under-
standable. Its main strengths are unquestionably its success in integrating
practice with theory and the pluralistic, broad and integrated view the authors
offer of management accounting change.

Maria Major
ISCTE Business School, Lisbon, Portugal
# 2009 Maria Major

Confession and Bookkeeping: The Religious, Moral, and Rhetorical Roots

of Modern Accounting
James Aho
Albany: State University of New York Press, 2005, xx þ 131 pp., US$16.95,
ISBN: 0 7914 6546 2

This book addresses two related questions that historians of accounting have been
attempting to answer for many years. First, why did double-entry bookkeeping
(DEB) emerge in the late Middle Ages in Italy, rather than in another period
or location? Secondly, what is the relationship between DEB and the rise of capit-
alism? Aho is a sociologist with interests in religion and rhetoric, and some 20
 184 Book Reviews

years ago he investigated the structure of DEB as advocated by Luca Pacioli in

the first printed manual of accounting, the Summa de Arithmetica of 1494, and
as evidenced in medieval Italian accounting records. The present book was stimu-
lated by an enquiry from an accounting professor about Aho’s earlier work,
which led to his becoming aware of the ways in which the ‘new’ accounting his-
torians were studying the origins of DEB using ideas and methods drawn from
sociology. Two particular sociologists who had commented on accounting’s
relationship with capitalism were Weber and Sombart. The former regarded
the rise of capitalism as essentially a phenomenon of Protestantism, but saw
DEB as an aspect of rational calculation of capital, while the latter located the
emergence of capitalism within the Catholic society of late medieval Italy, and
considered DEB to be an essential precondition for the ‘capitalist spirit’.
Aho tends to support Sombart’s position, though he introduces a factor that has
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hitherto not been linked with the emergence of DEB. This is the sacrament of
penance in the Roman Catholic Church, centring on confession to a priest (and
subsequently absolution for sins). Aho notes that confession became a core
aspect of Catholic life only in the early 13th century. Catholics were encouraged
to keep scrupulous records of their sins so that they could confess them – the fear
being that an overlooked and hence unabsolved sin could be the cause of eternal
damnation. Aho refers to several manuals of penance as providing examples of a
‘moral balance sheet’. He suggests that business people saw themselves as
running particular risks of sin, because commerce was regarded by medieval
Catholics as likely to involve unjust transactions and to encourage the sin of
avarice. Lending money at interest (usury) was considered especially sinful,
and Aho follows earlier economic and accounting historians such as Raymond
de Roover in suggesting that transactions structured to conceal in-substance inter-
est charges could be facilitated using the DEB system.
Aho considers that the duality inherent in DEB was also derived from the
concept of confession. The idea of penance assumed that the occasion of sin
could be balanced out by penitential acts – for every sin there was a penance.
Aho notes that the standard style of journal entry in the DEB system reflected
this balance – for every debit there was a credit. He draws other parallels with
confession, observing that the standard information that Pacioli recommends
should be recorded for transactions – who were the parties to the transaction,
what objects or items did the transaction involve, where and when did it take
place, how was it carried out, how much was involved in monetary terms and
who were the witnesses to the transaction – was also the information that
manuals of penance suggested that sinners should note about their sins. Aho
also suggests that the emphasis placed by Pacioli on painstakingly detailed pro-
cedures of recording transactions and checking the DEB ledgers, to ensure that no
transaction is omitted and no error is allowed to remain uncorrected, matches the
scrupulous behaviour expected of the sinner preparing for confession.
In Aho’s conception, merchants and other businesspeople were preparing DEB
records in order to demonstrate to themselves, their business associates, society
 Book Reviews 185

and most importantly God, that they were conducting their business affairs justly
and avoiding sin. He uses a rhetorical analysis to highlight the ‘pious inscrip-
tions’ – invocations of God, Christ and the saints – with which medieval
Italian merchants began their ledgers, and suggests that this is further evidence
that maintaining DEB records was not just a matter of commercial efficiency
but indicated the confessional nature of DEB. He concludes that the rite of con-
fession had a key influence on the emergence of DEB, but that it paradoxically
inhibited the full emergence of a capitalist spirit. It took the Reformation, and
the utter rejection of confession by reformers such as Luther and Calvin, to ‘dis-
enchant’ business and accounting, and liberate capitalism. Aho notes the absence
of ‘pious inscriptions’ in the writings on DEB of the early 17th-century Protestant
Flemish author Simon Stevin as evidence for this ‘disenchanting’ of DEB. As a
functionally efficient system for recording transactions, embodying the built-in
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check of dual recording and internal balancing, DEB could continue to support
the efficient merchant even though it no longer carried with it the implications
of the confessional.
Aho’s argument involves identifying a range of factors that provided the ‘con-
ditions of possibility’ for the emergence of DEB in late medieval Italy. He men-
tions the importance of the Dominican and Franciscan orders of friars (Pacioli
was a Franciscan) as providing models of Christian living within society,
rather than embodying a separation from society as the monastic orders did.
He notes that the Papacy recognised the evidential authority of written docu-
ments, particularly those prepared by notaries, from the mid-12th century,
when other parts of Europe still insisted on the primacy of oral evidence. Aho
comments on the involvement of notaries in preparing underlying documents
of transactions and even the DEB records themselves. Overall, his argument is
not that the sacrament of confession ‘caused’ DEB, but rather that it provided
a setting within which a written accounting system based on detailed record-
keeping and an underlying structure of duality and balance had an intellectual
and spiritual as well as a utilitarian justification.
The argument is open to some objections. First, suggestions have been made
that rudimentary double-entry systems existed in the Roman Empire, in
Ancient India and in the medieval Middle East, and that these systems could
have had a direct or indirect influence on Italian DEB. Although the evidence pre-
sented for these suggestions is weak and easily rebutted, the strong trade links
between Italy and the Levant in the 10th –12th centuries makes it impossible
to rule out altogether that Italian merchants observed some of the precursors to
systematic DEB and took these back to their home cities. More significantly,
Aho passes quickly over the fact that other religions had some form of ‘moral
accounting’. In Arabic, for example, the word muhasabah, which is derived
from hisab (account), can mean both business accounting (and sometimes
audit) and a form of spiritual self-assessment: interestingly, this was discussed
by several leading Islamic philosophers in the 12th and 13th centuries, at the
time the Roman Catholic Church was adopting confession. Muhasabah seems
 186 Book Reviews

to be a practice not unlike the personal ‘score-keeping’ over sins advocated by the
Catholic manuals of penance that Aho discusses. So why did double-entry not
develop in the Middle East rather than in Italy? Could it be, paradoxically,
that, despite echoing the Catholic Church in prohibiting usury, Islam as a religion
did not hold commerce in the same degree of suspicion as medieval Catholicism?
After all, the Qur’an observes that God has permitted trade while forbidding
usury. If Aho’s thesis that DEB was a technique for Italian merchants of the
late Middle Ages to assuage suspicions concerning sinful commerce is correct,
then perhaps Muslim merchants felt less need for such a ‘technology of self-
confession’.
It is often helpful for a discipline to listen to ideas from outside, and Aho’s
work provides interesting insights on early accounting from the perspective of
the sociological study of the medieval period. Others have drawn parallels
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between spiritual and temporal accountings, but Aho provides a particularly sti-
mulating account from within the Roman Catholic tradition. Indeed, he could
have gone further by discussing the Catholic doctrine of the ‘Treasury of
Merit’ (which he mentions only in passing). This doctrine posits that the good
deeds of Christ and the saints are accumulated in a heavenly ‘account’ available
to the Church, which can be ‘drawn on’ (in a manner similar to an Italian mer-
chant’s drawing on the resources of a merchant in another city through the
means of a bill of exchange) by the Pope, through the grant of an ‘indulgence’,
to offset the sins of believers. The system of indulgences later became a matter
of commerce, the sale of indulgences in 16th-century Germany being one of
the factors stimulating the Reformation. If spiritual accounting for one’s sins
to facilitate confession and absolution provided the mentality within which tem-
poral accounting for one’s business using DEB emerged, then perhaps temporal
accounting was reflected back onto the business of absolution. Aho’s book should
stimulate historians of accounting to consider the origins of double-entry and its
links to the emergence of capitalism from a fresh and potentially fruitful angle,
and it reinforces the view that we can fully understand accounting only within
its social contexts, not as a timeless technology of financial calculation.

Christopher J. Napier
Royal Holloway, University of London, UK
# 2009 Christopher J. Napier