Richard K. Fleischman - Critical Histories of Accounting: Sinister Inscriptions in the Modern Era

EDITED BYGARRYCARNEGIE(Melbourne University Private, Australia),

JOHNRICHARDEDWARDS(Cardiff University, UK),

SALVADORCARMONA(Instituto de Empresa, Spain) and

DICKFLEISCHMAN(John Carroll University, USA)

Edited by Richard K. Fleischman,

Warwick Funnell and and Stephen P. Walker

The critical tradition has come to occupy a prominent place in accounting historiography. Critical accounting scholars have confronted the responsibility of accounting and accountants in precipitating crises in the past and the present. They have revealed how the seemingly innocuous practice of accounting has featured in key episodes of the modern era such as acts of genocide, the operation of slavery, the treatment of indigenous peoples and the exploitation of labour under capitalism. Scholars have also shown that the organizations which represent accounting practitioners and the places in which accountants pursue their craft are locations for the practice of social exclusion on the basis of gender, class, race and ethnicity.

This book presents a collection of eleven previously published, signicant articles, authored by prominent critical accounting historians, in the hope of interesting a new generation to consider the intellectual possibilities and rewards of doing research in the area. These chapters are prefaced by an overarching and thematic review, which charts the expansion of critical accounting history research and suggests some future directions. The titles of the four parts of this bookannihilation, subjugation, exploitation and exclusionrecognize that an impressive, expanding body of historical research has shown accounting to be far more than a prosaic, neutral technical practice. Instead, accounting inscriptions can have a pronounced and powerful moral dimension as a sinister political tool used to promote the interests, ideologies and plans of individuals or groups, irrespective of any catastrophic impacts on others. There have been many recurring episodes in the past, observes Fleischman (2004, 12), where accounting or accounting practitioners stand accused of participation in repressive regimes or dishonest actions.