Accounting fraud before codification: An inquiry on budget misstatements in eighteenth-century Venice

2021 ◽  
pp. 103237322198945
Author(s):  
Marisa Agostini ◽  
Riccardo Cella ◽  
Giovanni Favero
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Accounting Information ◽  
Exceptional Case ◽  
Financial Fraud ◽  
Fraud Triangle ◽  
Accounting Fraud ◽  
Late Eighteenth Century ◽  
Technical Possibility ◽  
Ceramic Manufacturing

The article focuses on the understudied role of accounting information in financial fraud in pre-modern historical contexts where specific regulations and standards were absent. Following a systematic literature review, the authors adopt an enriched version of the ‘fraud triangle’ to correctly identify fraud in such a setting. A microhistorical approach allows them to identify an exceptional case documenting the use of accounting statements to disclose a financial fraud in a ceramic manufacturing partnership in late eighteenth-century Venice. The case is analysed to identify the role of accounting information in determining the purpose (incentive), the technical possibility (opportunity) and the consequences (rationalisation) of the fraud. The results emphasise the authorities’ use of accounting statements to assess the situation of the company and fix its crisis, rather than to sanction fraudulent behaviours.

Slavery and Ransom

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Will Smiley
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Ottoman Empire ◽  
Young Men ◽  
Individual Characteristics ◽  
The State ◽  
Customary Law ◽  
Late Eighteenth Century ◽  
Late Eighteenth ◽  
The Law

This chapter explores captives’ fates after their capture, all along the Ottoman land and maritime frontiers, arguing that this was largely determined by individuals’ value for ransom or sale. First this was a matter of localized customary law; then it became a matter of inter-imperial rules, the “Law of Ransom.” The chapter discusses the nature of slavery in the Ottoman Empire, emphasizing the role of elite households, and the varying prices for captives based on their individual characteristics. It shows that the Ottoman state participated in ransoming, buying, exploiting, and sometimes selling both female and male captives. The state particularly needed young men to row on its galleys, but this changed in the late eighteenth century as the fleet moved from oars to sails. The chapter then turns to ransom, showing that a captive’s ability to be ransomed, and value, depended on a variety of individualized factors.

Geopolitics of Comparison: World Literature Avant la Lettre

2021 ◽  
Vol 73 (3) ◽  
pp. 255-269
Author(s):  
Waïl S. Hassan
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Comparative Literature ◽  
World Literature ◽  
Medieval Period ◽  
Early Nineteenth Century ◽  
Late Eighteenth Century ◽  
Late Eighteenth ◽  
History Of

Abstract According to a well-known narrative, the concept of Weltliteratur and its academic correlative, the discipline of comparative literature, originated in Germany and France in the early nineteenth century, influenced by the spread of scientism and nationalism. But there is another genesis story that begins in the late eighteenth century in Spain and Italy, countries with histories entangled with the Arab presence in Europe during the medieval period. Emphasizing the role of Arabic in the formation of European literatures, Juan Andrés wrote the first comparative history of “all literature,” before the concepts of Weltliteratur and comparative literature gained currency. The divergence of the two genesis stories is the result of competing geopolitical interests, which determine which literatures enter into the sphere of comparison, on what terms, within which paradigms, and under what ideological and discursive conditions.

Inventing the Present: Historical Roots of the Anthropocene

2011 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 63-84 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Davis
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Academic Disciplines ◽  
Foreseeable Future ◽  
Physical Force ◽  
Charles Lyell ◽  
Geological Processes ◽  
Late Eighteenth Century ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Historical Transition

In 1833, Charles Lyell proposed that the current post-glacial geological epoch be termed Recent. In the late 1860s, Paul Gervais suggested Holocene as a more appropriate name for the same epoch. In 2000, Paul Crutzen and Eugene Stoermer jointly proposed that a new epoch beginning in the late eighteenth century should be named Anthropocene to connote that the human-determined geological signature is now, and for the foreseeable future will be, the predominant physical force shaping the Earth. Such a conclusion by geoscientists will not, and perhaps should not, pass unnoticed by politicians, environmentalists and other academic disciplines. Based upon a review of the early debates over the role of a deity in geological causation, the power of classification and nomenclature, and distinctions between organic and inorganic in geological processes, this paper traces the historical transition from Recent to Holocene to Anthropocene and concludes that the conceptual space for creating the modern Anthropocene was carved during the nineteenth-century foundation of geology.

Hamann, Johann Georg (1730–88)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frederick Beiser
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Friedrich Schlegel ◽  
Sturm Und Drang ◽  
German Enlightenment ◽  
Late Eighteenth Century ◽  
The Social ◽  
Late Eighteenth ◽  
The Mind

Hamann was one of the most important critics of the German Enlightenment or Aufklärung. He attacked the Aufklärung chiefly because it gave reason undue authority over faith. It misunderstood faith, which consists in an immediate personal experience, inaccessible to reason. The main fallacy of the Aufklärung was hypostasis, the reification of ideas, the artificial abstraction of reason from its social and historical context. Hamann stressed the social and historical dimension of reason, that it must be embodied in society, history and language. He also emphasized the pivotal role of language in the development of reason. The instrument and criterion of reason was language, whose only sanction was tradition and use. Hamann was a sharp critic of Kant, whose philosophy exemplified all the sins of the Aufklärung. Hamann attacked the critical philosophy for its purification of reason from experience, language and tradition. He also strongly objected to all its dualisms, which seemed arbitrary and artificial. The task of philosophy was to unify all the various functions of the mind, seeing reason, will and feeling as an indivisible whole. Although he was original and unorthodox, Hamann’s critique of reason should be placed within the tradition of Protestant nominalism. Hamann saw himself as a defender of Luther, whose reputation was on the wane in late eighteenth-century Germany. Hamann was also a founder of the Sturm und Drang, the late eighteenth-century literary movement which celebrated personal freedom and revolt. His aesthetics defended creative genius and the metaphysical powers of art. It marked a sharp break with the rationalism of the classical tradition and the empiricism of late eighteenth-century aesthetics. Hamann was a seminal influence upon Herder, Goethe, Jacobi, Friedrich Schlegel and Kierkegaard.

The Romanesca as a Spiritual Sign in the Operas of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven

2020 ◽  
pp. 163-192
Author(s):  
Olga Sánchez-Kisielewska
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Final Section ◽  
Musical Structure ◽  
Spiritual Dimension ◽  
Late Eighteenth Century ◽  
Late Eighteenth ◽  
The Relationship

This chapter explores the role of a musical pattern, the Romanesca schema, as a signifier of spiritual meanings in opera. It addresses the relationship between the Romanesca and the hymn topic and argues that the schema, semantically empty in its origins, acquired in the late eighteenth century connotations of ceremony, solemnity, alterity, and even transcendence. Several vignettes from operas by Haydn and Mozart illustrate how composers deployed the pattern in scenes depicting worship, prayers, and ritual actions. Beethoven’s Fidelio occupies the final section, a case study that shows the Romanesca interacting with other elements of the musical structure for expressive purposes. The chapter provides a novel interpretation of certain moments of the opera, suggesting that Beethoven relied on the sacred implications of the Romanesca—arguably available to historical listeners—to intensify the spiritual dimension of the drama.

Enforcement In Apprenticeship Contracts: Were Runaways a Serious Problem? Evidence from Montreal

1995 ◽  
Vol 55 (3) ◽  
pp. 551-574 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gillian Hamilton
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Late Eighteenth Century ◽  
Late Eighteenth ◽  
Cast Doubt

Historians argue that in late eighteenth-century North Aerica, apprentices often ran away form their masters. Masters’ inability to write enforceable contracts, the argument goes, sparked the decline of traditional apprenticeships. This article addresses the issue of enforcement. I analyze an apprentice’s incentive to run away and the role of enforcement with detailed archival evidence form Montreal. These data cast doubt on the claim that masters were unable to construct enforceable contracts and call into question the severity of a runaway problem.

‘THE FAMOUS VIDAL’: NEW LIGHT ON THE LIFE AND WORKS OF A GUITARIST IN LATE EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY FRANCE

2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 123-149
Author(s):  
DAMIÁN MARTÍN GIL
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Extensive Study ◽  
Late Eighteenth Century ◽  
Late Eighteenth ◽  
Multiple References ◽  
Musical Activities

ABSTRACTDuring the second half of the eighteenth century the Spanish guitar reached a level of popularity in France not equalled elsewhere. Among the various composers who contributed to the vogue for the instrument in this country, sources of the period refer to a certain Mr Vidal, a guitarist of Spanish origins who was regarded as one of the most important masters of the guitar in Europe. Despite multiple references to his musical activities no extensive study has yet been made, which leaves this figure only partially studied. In order to address this lacuna, this article reconstructs the life of this guitarist, placing his music in the environment in which he lived in order to obtain a clearer picture of the situation of the guitar and the role of Vidal as a composer, guitarist, publisher and teacher.

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