Double Entry

“Lively history. . . . Show[s] double entry’s role in the creation of the accounting profession, and even of capitalism itself.”—The New Yorker Filled with colorful characters and history, Double Entry takes us from the ancient origins of accounting in Mesopotamia to the frontiers of modern finance. At the heart of the story is double-entry bookkeeping: the first system that allowed merchants to actually measure the worth of their businesses. Luca Pacioli—monk, mathematician, alchemist, and friend of Leonardo da Vinci—incorporated Arabic mathematics to formulate a system that could work across all trades and nations. As Jane Gleeson-White reveals, double-entry accounting was nothing short of revolutionary: it fueled the Renaissance, enabled capitalism to flourish, and created the global economy. John Maynard Keynes would use it to calculate GDP, the measure of a nation’s wealth. Yet double-entry accounting has had its failures. With the costs of sudden corporate collapses such as Enron and Lehman Brothers, and its disregard of environmental and human costs, the time may have come to re-create it for the future.

Christie Malry is a simple man. As a young accounts clerk at a confectionery factory in London he learns the principles of Double-Entry Bookkeeping. Frustrated by the petty injustices that beset his life – particularly those caused by the behaviour of authority figures – he determines a unique way to settle his grievances: a system of moral double-entry bookkeeping. So, for every offence society commits against him, Christie exacts recompense. ‘Every Debit must have its Credit, the First Golden Rule’ of the system. All accounts are to be settled, and they are – in the most alarming way. Christie Malry’s Own Double-Entry, the last novel to be published in B S Johnson's lifetime, is undoubtedly his funniest.

A.D. 1494 - the earliest known writer on bookkeeping

The rise and metamorphosis of double - entry bookkeeping is one of history's best - kept secrets and most important untold tales ... Through its logic we have let the planet go to ruin - and through its logic we now have a chance to avert that ruin.' Our world is governed by the numbers generated by the accounts of nations and corporations. We depend on these numbers to direct our governments, organisations, economies, societies. But where did they come from - and how did they become so powerful? The answer to these questions begins in the Dark Ages, with the emergence in northern Italy of a new form of accounting called double - entry bookkeeping. The story of double entry reaches from the Crusades through the Renaissance to the factories of industrial Britain and the policymakers of the Great Depression and the Second World War. At its heart stands a Renaissance monk, mathematician and magician, and his celebrated treatise for merchants. With double entry came the wealth and cultural efflorescence that was the Renaissance, a new scientific worldview, and a new economic system: capitalism. Over the past one hundred years accounting has flourished to an astonishing degree, despite the many scandals it has left in its wake. The figures double entry generates have become a sophisticated system of numbers which in the twenty - first century rules the global economy, manipulated by governments, financial institutions and the quant nerds of Wall Street. And the story of double entry is still unfolding - because today it might be our last hope for life on earth.

Accounting Ledger Book Double Entry This accounting ledger book is simple and perfect for personal and small business. You can do your accounts in a professional way and it will help you in bookkeeping. It contains 6 columns: number, date, description, debit, credit, balance. Details: * 120 pages * 6 x 9 inches *Matte cover