On Books

I posted this a few months ago on AECM:

I have been visiting India the past three weeks. I carried with me two books to read: 1. Plutocrats by Chrystal Freeland and 2. Regenesis by George Church and Ed Regis. However be fore I could finish both I picked up a third (at a local bookstore), probably ONE OF the best books I have read in my life: "The Great Arc" by John Keay. I have put aside the other two books until I finish the Keay book.

It deals with one of the largest scientific expeditions of the 19th century, of survey measurement of the Indian sub-continent by William Lambton (the first Superintendent of the Great Trigonometrical Survey of India) and his successor Colonel George Everest (after whom Mt. Everest is named, its real name being 'Sagar mata' or 'mother of oceans' in Nepalese or Chomolungma in Tibetan, the mountain straddling Nepal and Tibet). William Lambton is buried at a place (Hinganghat) in central India  close to which I used to work 45 years ago.

I am posting this tidbit since much of the book deals with the discovery of Mt. Everest via survey measurements and the controversies surrounding them. I could very easily draw parallels between this and preparing measurements/disclosures in financial statements. It is a shame I had not come across this book a few decades ago, for I would have been a lot wiser.

I very strongly recommend this book, and if I ever teach a graduate accounting theory course I'll make it a highly recommended (almost required reading). I'll definitely include it in my doctoral seminar on Information Theory next fall (a course where we do deal with measurements with triangulation in Geographic Information systems).