Reviewed by Vaughan Radcliffe Case Western Reserve University

For evidence of the vibrancy and potential of historical research in accounting, colleagues need only turn to Richardson’s impressive collection of papers from the recent 7th World Congress of Accounting Historians, held in Kingston, Ontario, Canada. The breadth and vigor of current historical research is well represented in a collection which brings together a range of topics and national perspectives. As Richardson observes in the introduction to this volume, “the papers published here and presented at the Congress provide a fascinating snapshot of the current state of the global economy and the range of issues which are in the collective conscious” [p. 2|. Given this diversity of work, it is impossible to do fully address the range of topics covered in the collection. Instead, I provide a broad overview of what is available here, and of the body of work represented.

The papers are organized into six sections: Cost and Management Accounting; Education; Financial Accounting and Auditing; Professional Organizations; Taxation and Texts. A variety of approaches are represented, including the more traditional scholarship as well as emerging research paradigms inspired by work in other disciplines.

In the Cost and Management Accounting section De Beelde explores aspects of the Belgian experience, while Okano revisits Emerson’s work on cost accounting. McNair and Vangermeersch provide a stimulating and thoughtful analysis of the US National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA) and its influence on management accounting concerns. Their discussion of the “blue eagle” symbol used to mark the goods of those supporting the NIRA provides fascinating insights into the broader socio-political frameworks within which accountancy operates. Their overall argument that full cost pricing was fostered by the NIRA at the expense of more economically inspired approaches was, for me at least, a real eye opener.

The occasion of the centennial of the US CPA exam motivates the two education papers represented here. Flesher et al. review the accounting education movement and provide brief biographies of relevant characters. Oliverio and Newman focus more on the first CPA examination, its format and nature. The Financial Accounting and Auditing section includes a variety of work, dealing with American, Spanish and Portuguese experiences: a refreshing breadth of national experience, given the more limited empirical domains associated with financial reporting work in the bulk of the accounting literature.

In the Professional Organizations section of the monograph, two authors discuss differing aspects of professionalisation projects in Australasia. Anderson analyses the integration of cost accounting bodies within the national societies of accountants in Australia and New Zealand, arguing that this was to the detriment of cost accounting as a profession. Kathie Cooper casts a critical eye on the legitimization of Australian accountancy, suggesting that broad alliances among those interested in accounting associations, (such as the business press, financial interests, government bodies, and the then colonial British government) were an intrinsic part of the professionalisation project in Australia. I am unsure that these alliances really are as “non-traditional” as Cooper characterizes them; surely such networks have been recognized in the literature as being integral to the production and reproduction of professional claims. But this argument stands as a counterpoint to a more traditional (and often functionalist) view of the pre-eminence of education, examination and training in procuring professional status.

Several papers comprise the Taxation section of the monograph, with work from Samson, Smith and Yelvington et al. These papers deal with the progressivity of the US and Canadian income tax, the historical development of the lower of cost or market rule in the UK, and an examination of “sin” taxes in the US and Canada respectively. In reading these papers shortly before dealing with my own US taxes I must admit that Yelvington et al. approach taxation with more good humor than I have so far been able to manage—one reason for their paper being an entertaining as well as informative read. Their analysis of the political promotion of “sin” taxes has special resonance to me as I write in Cleveland, a city that has chosen to raise regressive sin taxes so as to erect the palatial facilities demanded by the monied elite of professional sport. Though not centrally a part of their analysis, Yelvington et al.’s work serves to highlight issues of social justice.

Clarke and Lanero round out the monograph with two papers examining original texts, their focus being Ireland’s Ammonet, and Mellis’ English treatise. Both approach their subject with sensitivity to detail, and to the context in which the work was written.

The monograph includes a listing of papers presented at the 7th World Congress, and a review of this work and the contents of this volume suggests two clear themes. Firstly, historical work seems poised to explore a variety of national experiences, including those influenced by former colonial rule. The breadth of contexts explored within the monograph itself provides evidence of the variety of venues in which accounting history is being explored. The analytical significance of the nation state could well be questioned, but the differing cultural experiences and traditions that are pointed to in this body of work suggests a broadening of historical discourse.

The second theme can be discerned in certain of the papers, but especially in the work presented at the Congress. Although more traditional historical work still appears to dominate historical effort, it is clear that theoretically informed critical (or, as Richardson terms it, “emancipatory” [p. 1J) work is on the rise. Kathie Cooper’s work in the monograph provides one example; more are found in remaining papers which depart from what Ncu and Richardson describe as a more conventional narrative concerned largely with the details of practice rather than the context in which practices evolved [p. 339]. The relevance that the U.S. Accounting Education Change Commission finds in history as a means to understand practice seems likely to be met by a more theoretically informed literature more directly concerned with producing a “history of the present.” In this, the monograph reminds us that accounting history is a discipline in flux.