Abstract

John Richard Edwards, Ed., Twentieth-Century Accounting Thinkers (New York: Routledge, 1994, 374 pp., $75). Reviewed by Maureen Berry University of Illinois The development of accounting thought around the world during the past century undoubtedly owes more to the endeavors of certain key players than, say, environmental reaction, in the transformation processes. Further, creative sparks originate with certain individuals who may or may not, working alone or collectively, build up schools of thought to develop particular paths of progress. Such rationales underlie this collection of nineteen essays which describe the achievements of leading individuals who have helped, in fundamental ways, to shape the direction of accounting theory and practice in the recent past. Certain scope limitations are inevitable when putting together an anthology which attempts to grasp the essence of its subject, as the editor points out in the introduction [p. xiii]. Thus, some criticisms of editorial choices are to be expected. In this case, however, a high level of satisfaction has already been expressed in the accolades of the Academy of Accounting Historians when honoring it with the 1994 Hourglass Award. The essays cover seventeen individuals separately, and two grouped contributions: one dealing with a number of leading French theorists and the other with three at the London School of Economics. Presentation is in alphabetical order by, and within, country: Australia (Chambers); Canada (Mattessich); Finland (Saario); France (eleven plus others); Germany (Schmalenbach and Schmidt); Italy (Zappa); Japan (Iwata, Kurosawa, and Kimura); the Netherlands (Limperg); the United Kingdom (Dicksee; de Paula; the LSE triad of Baxter, Solomons, and Edey; and Stamp); and the United States (Hatfield, Paton, Blough, and MacNeal). In summary, ten Anglo-American contributions, six European, and three Japanese. The authors are, generally, compatriots with some special knowledge of their subjects. All followed a broad outline to provide a portrait of the person, dealing with family, background, and education; career details; professional links; the subject's ideas and theories; an assessment of their impact on accounting theory and practice; major influences on the `thinker,' for example, from other writers; and their leading publications [p. xiv]. This approach worked well and, God being in the details, the chroniclers are to be commended for some interesting insights. For this reviewer at least, though, there were too few specifics about the pulses that drove the energies. While Chambers, Limperg, and Stamp, for example, come through as greatly energetic, forceful personalities with the courage of their convictions, it is Yamagata who offers the most rounded, personal comments. Professor Wasaburo Kimura, we learn, was a warm person with a sharp mind [p. 204]. With his witty and informative lecturing style and popular personality, he attracted overflow crowds of students to his lectures, but he was a tough grader. He liked to play tennis, enjoyed music and Rakugo (a story ending in a joke), delighted in trying varieties of gourmet food, and drank beer. His character was sorely tested when he went blind at the age of 50 but he was sustained, as a devout Buddhist, by his faith and his wife's assistance as he continued to research and teach for a further 13 years until retirement. Turning to technical aspects, those of us without linguistic access to the Japanese literature may be surprised at Japanese understanding of western philosophies in original or translated versions. …

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