ABSTRACT
It is tempting to assume that accountants have adopted a critical attitude towards the evaluation of alternative accounting methods only in recent years. 1 This is not so. It is no doubt the case that there are cycles of intense activity and periods of relative calm and, because we know relatively little about our accounting past, a resurgence of critical comment naturally produces a tendency to conclude that matters are the subject of radical comment for the first time. Such a conclusion is usually wrong.
