Double Entry

Second Hand (Hardcover)

Excellent Condition

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, and 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.

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 that 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.