Double Entry: How the Merchants of Venice Created Modern Finance

Though a history of accounting might sound like dry reading, that is not the case in this narrative of the birth of double-entry bookkeeping in 15th-century Venice. Gleeson-White (Australian Classics: 50 Great Writers and Their Celebrated Works) tells the story of double-entry bookkeeping to show the historical importance of keeping accounts, not only of cash and profits but also of resources. She begins with Italian friar and mathematician Luca Pacioli (1445–1517) and the treatise in which he first codified the concept. His process survived basically unchanged until the Industrial Revolution, when it was tested by the rise of the corporation, which increased demands on record keeping. Gleeson-White tracks double-entry bookkeeping all the way through the economic crisis of 2008 and explains current trends to create more qualitative measures that rate a country or company’s worth. ­