'A tour de force. Professor Whittington, Britain's premier accounting academic, has produced a masterpiece. Having been an active participant through both the 'Golden Age' of accounting theory and the inflation accounting controversy and a standard setter for many years thereafter, he looks back on the twentieth-century theories of income measurement, efforts to implement aspects of them and the effect (replete with references) of the huge volume of research on the direction of accounting. Written in his easy style, this book will become a classic - essential reading for teachers, theorists, researchers and accounting policy makers.' Sir David Tweedie, Chairman, International Valuation Standards Council