{"product_id":"the-reckoning-financial-accountability-and-the-rise-and-fall-of-nations","title":"The Reckoning: Financial Accountability and the Rise and Fall of Nations","description":"\u003cp\u003eA brilliant (Los Angeles Review of Books) history of accounting  showing how financial and political accountability has shaped the rise and fall of nations and empires  Whether building a road or fighting a war  leaders from ancient Mesopotamia to the present have relied on financial accounting to track their states assets and guide its policies. Basic accounting tools such as auditing and double-entry bookkeeping form the basis of modern capitalism and the nation-state. Yet our appreciation for accounting and its formative role throughout history remains minimal at best-and we remain ignorant at our peril. Poor or risky practices can shake  and even bring down  entire societies.  In The Reckoning  historian and MacArthur \"Genius\" Award-winner Jacob Soll presents a sweeping history of accounting  drawing on a wealth of examples from over a millennia of human history to reveal how accounting has shaped kingdoms  empires  and entire civilizations. The Medici family of 15th century Florence used the double-entry method to win the loyalty of their clients  but eventually began to misrepresent their accounts  ultimately contributing to the economic decline of the Florentine state itself. In the 17th and 18th centuries  European rulers shunned honest accounting  understanding that accurate bookkeeping would constrain their spending and throw their legitimacy into question. And in fact  when King Louis XVIs director of finances published the crowns accounts in 1781  his revelations provoked a public outcry that helped to fuel the French Revolution. When transparent accounting finally took hold in the 19th Century  the practice helped England establish a global empire. But both inept and willfully misused accounting persist  as the catastrophic Stock Market Crash of 1929 and the Great Recession of 2008 have made all too clear.  A masterwork of economic and political history  and a radically new perspective on the recent past  The Reckoning compels us to see how accounting is an essential instrument of great institutions and nations-and one that  in our increasingly transparent and interconnected world  has never been more vital.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"My Store","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44945254449205,"sku":"ByrdShop_0465031528","price":32.12,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0627\/8139\/0901\/files\/9780465031528.jpg?v=1769880095","url":"https:\/\/atxbooks.com\/products\/the-reckoning-financial-accountability-and-the-rise-and-fall-of-nations","provider":"ATX Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}