Reviewed by Paul Frishkoff
University of Oregon

It might be argued that all history is essentially oral, but the ad-vent of the tape recorder and literal transcription has certainly affected the nature and quality of the process: the Nixon tapes suggest more authenticity, though considerably less elegance and literacy, than, for instance, The Iliad.

This book is an ambitious—and, on the whole, successful—effort to capture the thoughts of some leading academics and practitioners on contemporary financial reporting issues. The word “recent” in the title should be noticed as a constraint; the emphasis is on the experience of the past 15 years. The word “standards” probably also belongs in the title, for the dominant theme is the decline and fall of the APB, with the advent and struggle for survival of the FASB as a secondary motif.

These “interviews” are not of the open-ended, stream-of-con-sciousness variety, but rather consist of responses of panelists to carefully phrased questions by moderators (apparently before a live audience, though this isn’t made clear).

There are five major sections or panels:

I. Philip Defliese and Stephen Zeff on the Search for Standards.
II. Charles Horngren and Herbert Miller on the APB, as viewed by two former members thereof.
III. Ernest Hicks, John Myers, and Arthur Wyatt on APB Research, as viewed by the authors of three major Accounting Research Studies.
IV. Sidney Davidson and David Solomns on the Trueblood and Wheat Commissions.
V. Richard Baker, Michael Chetkovich, Ralph Kent, Donald Kirk, Robert Mautz, and A. Clarence Sampson on Accounting during the Next Decade.

The respondents’ comments are refreshingly candid, though tactful. The details of the APB’s battles with various organizations and agencies are well articulated, but the emotional turmoil which must surely have characterized these struggles is curiously lacking. A few heroes explicity emerge (Reed Storey, for one, garners his share of plaudits), but individual “villains” lurk only in the shadows. There is, to be sure, reference to the FEI, various governmental agencies, and financial analysts as frequent critics of the accounting profession, but individual protagonists are usually alluded to, rather than identified. In this respect, it is rather unfortunate that the panels consisted almost entirely of practitioners and professors; there are no representatives of industry or the securities analysts, and only Mr. Sampson of the SEC is there to speak for government (which he does most ably).

All fifteen panelists (as well as the moderators, who are both faculty and Beta Alpha Psi students) acquit themselves ably, but one might single out especially the contributions of Zeff (on the development of accounting standards comparatively in the U.S., Canada, and Great Britain), Wyatt (on the trials and tribulations of authoring ARS No. 5), and Solomons (on Wheat Commission).

Actually less than half the book is devoted to transcriptions of the moderators’ questions and the panelists’ comments. The rest is fleshed out with a series of exhibits and appendices. Some, like Zeff’s Chronology of Significant Developments, 1926-72, are well worth reprinting. Some others, such as Horngren’s Letter to the Study Group, are worthwhile in that they might not otherwise be widely available to the public. Many, particularly the group following the last set of panelists, are good articles which might belong in a readings book but appear to serve primarily as filler in this particular volume. An appendix which lists all members of the APB, and the Opinions on which each voted, is particularly valuable to the student of recent American accounting history.
To this reviewer’s surprise and delight, some anonymous scholar took considerable time and effort to compile an admirably detailed subject index and a briefer one of citations to particular authors; other readings books and reprinted symposia would do well to emulate this.

The physical layout of the book (apparently photo-offset) is most legible, though there’s the usual number of inadvertent typographical errors. (Former APB member Milton Broeker is incorrectly if consistently referred to as “Broeher.” Davidson’s 1973 Stanford lecture is either inadvertently or otherwise identified as The Study Group or Objections on Financial Statements!)

This book belongs in the library of any accounting scholar, “historian” or not, and would be a stimulating input into many graduate accounting seminars. At the quoted price, it’s an incredible bargain, to boot.

(Vol. 2, No. 2, pp. 5, 6, 1975)