Reviews [1988, Vol. 15, no. 2]

              The Accounting Historians Journal
Vol. 15, No. 1
Spring 1988
REVIEWS
BARBARA D. MERINO, EDITOR University of North Texas
REVIEWS OF BOOKS AND OTHER PUBLICATIONS
Sokolow, Jaroslaw W., The History of Accounting Thought [Istocia razwitija buchgaltierskowo uczieta] (Moscow: Finansy i Statistik, 1985), 367 pp.
Reviewed by Alicia Jaruga University of Lodz (Poland)
Many books and papers have been devoted to the history of accounting, but only a few of them have been concerned with the development of accounting thought. This book successfully provides an integrated history of accounting thought around the world, emphasizing the less well-known contributions made in Russia and the Soviet Union.
Professor Sokolow's primary question is: what does the history of accounting thought teach us? In offering answers, he reveals a profound and wide-ranging knowledge of the subject-matter. In the light of the history of accounting re-search, he distinguishes the following approaches:
1. Philosophical — the approach adopted particularly in the works of F.W. Jezierski and J.M. Galperun, in the East, and of A. Haara. in the West.
2. Documentary — used by O.O. Bayer, H.F. Szirokow and B. Penndorf.
3. Synthetic — used by N.S. Pomazkow and A.I. Lozinski.
4. Analytic — used by A.K. Littleton and B.S. Yamey.
It must be said, however, that Sokolow does not take into account modern developments in accounting theory in the West, such as the work of R. Mattessich and Y. Ijiri.
A lot of attention is paid to economic records in antiquity and the Middle Ages. Further, the author analyzes the condi-tions in which the dualism of accounting arose. Next, he characterizes the development and expansion of double-entry