● The Reckoning: Financial Accountability and the Rise and Fall of Nations
By Jacob Soll
Review by James Grant via The Wall Street Journal
It’s shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves for great empires, prosperous city-states and the member companies of the Dow Jones Industrial Average. Debt or sin or war or the tax man finally lays them low. Now comes Jacob Soll with a new theory of the decline and fall of earthly institutions. He fingers the accountants.
According to the author of “The Reckoning,” successful societies—while they last—are those that properly cast their figures. They confront their liabilities as well as their assets. In their enterprise and politics, accountability is the watchword—until one misfortune or another sets the red ink to overflowing.
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