by Jacob Soll (Get the Book)Good bookkeeping makes for good government-but not for very long-according to this absorbing history of accounting in the public sphere. Historian and MacArthur fellow Soll (The Information Master) surveys public financial record keeping after the invention of double-entry accounting in 13th-century Tuscany, a breakthrough that made systematic analysis of profit and loss possible. The benefits for well-ordered, responsible government were felt wherever this innovation was embraced: medieval Italian city-states, 17th-century Holland, and 18th-century Britain all became economic and geopolitical powerhouses, he argues, thanks to well-kept government books. But his is even more a story of backsliding and failure, as corruption, spendthrift government, and factional intrigues perennially undermine the discipline of meticulous public accounting-and the state. Soll's engaging narrative highlights both the political impact of accounting practices-a public audit of Louis XVI's woeful state finances helped spark the French Revolution-and the advent of a "culture of accountability" as the bourgeois business classes rose to power; he explores the deep-seated religious and philosophical power of balanced-books metaphors in the West, from the Gospel of Matthew to Thoreau's championing of the simple life. The result is a provocative, illuminating take on history that assigns humdrum accountants a central and dramatic role. --Publishers Weekly
