Editorial: A general overview of perspectives and reflections on accounting’s past in Europe

This editorial aims to portray the background to and motivations for this special issue on the theme “Perspectives and reflections on accounting’s past in Europe”. While the articles in this issue will focus on different specific country topics, this editorial offers a general outline of the international dimension of European research on accounting history, by analysing the publication patterns in specialist international (English language-based) journals. Whereas the analysis confirms the dominant role of contributions from Anglo-Saxon scholars, the number of articles from other European countries is growing. This trend is partly related to the stimuli provided by special issues on country themes as well as by the vivid debates, proliferating in the last decade, on the publication outlets of European accounting historians. The European setting is characterized by a complex mix of cultures, languages and research traditions. Whereas national research in accounting history is proliferating rapidly in various local contexts and in different languages, this variety has not received sufficient attention within the international debate. In this respect, various articles and commentaries have emphasized the need to encourage European scholars in accounting history, whose first language is other than English, to contribute to the specialist English language-based international journals, as

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