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This volume, originally published in 1997, reports the findings of extensive archival and contextual research into the surviving accounting and business records of some 200 British Industrial Revolution enterprises. This study presents an overview of cost accounting and cost management practices, whilst investigating these methods in the three dominant industries of the period – iron, textiles, and mining. In addition, it provides two organisational case studies – the Carron Company and Boulton & Watt. Finally, it explores two issues central to Industrial Revolution costing – the relationship between technological change and cost management, and the paradigmatic approaches that have predominated in costing historiography.

What is Past is Prologue