Introduction

This anthology provides readers with a flavour of the development of cost accounting and emerging management accounting literature from ‘The Costing Renaissance’ to 1952. Many of the issues which were prominent in the middle of the twentieth century are still pressing issues today and received important early treatments. However, a more balanced longitudinal coverage of the relevant material enables readers to trace the development of new attitudes to problems which had been recognized early on and to become aware of the fact that different issues tended to dominate the literature as time went by. The selection bias has favoured material which was covered for the first time or in a new way.