From a history of accounting towards a philosophy of accounting communication

A History of Corporate Financial Reporting in Britain, by John Richard Edwards, New York, Routledge, 2018, 380 pp., ₤115/$140 (hardcover), ISBN 978-1-138-55318-7.

Upon reading and reviewing Edwards’ A History of Corporate Financial Reporting, a sense exists of how many conversations have taken place on how accounting is practised, and how the nature of accounting communications has changed over centuries. A philosophy of communication is needed to move towards a history of accounting as conversations. Pragmaticism, as set out by Dewey and others, indicates that an understanding of communication practices as agency in accounting is needed to re-cast the history of accounting as conversation. This volume provides the temporal co-ordinates for building a philosophy of communication in accounting.