Benedetto Cotrugli was a 15th century businessman who penned a “how-to” manual for business management that discussed double-entry bookkeeping 36 years before Pacioli's Summa, and was published in English by Palgrave Macmillan in 2017. We recommend that readers of The Accounting Review acquire and read this historically important text for three reasons. One is that the book helps us understand the economic environment in which double-entry bookkeeping first surfaced and, thus, ultimately the origins of modern accounting. A second reason is that the book reminds us that basic bookkeeping is a component of effective business management and its usefulness must be anchored in judgment regarding the legitimacy of a business's profit. Finally, the book is a fun read in a nerdy kind of way, and let's admit it, most academic accountants (present authors included) are nerds who are endlessly curious about things that hold no fascination for the rest...
