More than a numbers game : a brief history of accounting

"More Than a Numbers Game takes a detailed look at more than one hundred years of corporate accounting history in the United States - from the initial use of double-entry bookkeeping to Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) - and shows how accounting has solved numerous financial problems as well as created substantial controversy along the way."--Jacket.
Content: About the cover --
Preface --
1. Double-entry --
2. Railroads --
3. Taxes --
4. Costs --
5. Disclosure --
6. Standards --
7. Science --
8. Inflation --
9. Volatility --
10. Intangibles --
11. Debt --
12. Options --
13. Earnings --
14. SOX --
15. Epilogue --
Notes --
Bibliography --
Index --
About the author.
Abstract: In More Than a Numbers Game, practitioner and financial expert Tom King examines the key issues and events that have transformed accounting from a tool used by 19th century American railroad managers to communicate with absent British investors into an enabler of corporate fraud during the 2002 telecom crash.