The Routledge Companion to Accounting History

The editors’aim in compiling their Companion was to provide ‘a convenient vehicle for surveying and communicating the results of accounting history research to a wider audience and inspiring others to enter the field if the subject is to be dislodged from its status as a narrow specialism on the outer fringes of the history universe, a minor descendant on the economic and business branch of the history family tree’ (p. 2). The book is also intended to expand the horizons of accounting historians ‘who have recently been charged with exhibiting an unhealthy tendency to introversion’ (p. 2). Among the strengths of the book are the annotated lists of ‘key works’ and the extensive bibliography at the end of each of the 28 topical chapters.A further strength is the cross-referencing between some of the chapters, so that these chapters are shown to build on others. There is also a very good index. The book is divided into seven thematic parts: the discipline; technologies; theory and practice; institutions; economy; society and culture; and polity. In part 1, on the discipline, the two editors are joined by Christopher J. Napier as authors of the three chapters. In Chapter 1, Stephen P. Walker, writing on structures, territories and tribes, offers an instructive survey of the disciplinary associations and conferences as well as specialist journals which have been agents for encouraging and disseminating accounting history research. In addition, he contributes an insightful anthropological look at the behaviour of the academic ‘tribe’ of accounting historians. In Chapter 3, on subjects, sources and dissemination, John Richard Edwards identifies the trends over time in the topical areas taken up in accounting history research, and he contrasts the use of archival data with oral history as sources of evidence. He points to generalist accounting journals that have at times catered to historical research. When he refers to books and monographs as outlets, he might well have singled out his own publisher, Routledge, as the commercial house which most avidly publishes books on accounting history. Edwards furnishes a table with a list of journal special issues on accounting history. I myself am ambivalent towards special issues of journals. Whilst they do usefully stimulate research interest in the niche areas covered, they run the risk of publishing substandard work just to fill up a special issue. Furthermore, there is a tendency for the guest editors’ own work to find a home in such issues. In Chapter 2, Napier organises his discussion of historiography into two classes: ‘history of accounting’and ‘socio-historical accounting research’, including in the latter the Marxist and Foucauldian perspectives. He associates ‘history of accounting’ with studies of the early emergence of bookkeeping and accounting practice, but one must also credit the sizeable history literature on the evolution of academic and professional organisations and standard-setting bodies, including the increasingly ‘political’ colouring of the standard-setting process, i.e. a genre of history about accounting but not necessarily couched in a socio-historical context. The tension between ‘traditional’ and ‘new’ accounting history research can be found in many of the chapters. In part 2 on technologies, Salvador Carmona and Mahmoud Ezzamel, in Chapter 4, review research findings on ancient accounting, with a focus on Mesopotamia and ancient Egypt. They