Accounting through the Eyes of a Witness, 1973–2022 Garry D. Carnegie RMIT University I. INTRODUCTION I t is a great pleasure and privilege to offer this reflection piece for publication in the Accounting Historians Journal on the 50th anniversary of The Academy of Accounting Historians (hereafter, “the Academy”), formed in 1973 under the leadership of Gary John Previts, who became the Academy’s first president. The Academy was incorpo- rated as a not-for-profit organization in the U.S. State of Alabama and was registered on December 28, 1973 (see, for instance, Coffman, Roberts, and Previts 1989, 1998; Coffman, Lazdowski, and Previts 2014; Carnegie and Rodrigues 2007). As stated by Carnegie and Rodrigues (2007, 455), the Academy “is the largest association of accounting histori- ans …and is the prime membership organisation of accounting historians around the world” and in 2016 became a sec- tion of the American Accounting Association (AAA). Congratulations on this 50th anniversary are extended to the Academy and its past and present members for their respective contributions to its initiatives, activities, and develop- ment, acknowledging the contributions of all deceased members and other supporters of the organization across the past 50 years. To Gary Previts, thank you for your continuous leadership across the past five decades. The question may be posed: who provided the opportunity to write this reflection? William (Bill) Black, the editor of Accounting Historians Journal, sent an email, arriving at my computer on June 8, 2022, offering a commission to help in marking the important milestone 50th anniversary of the Academy of Accounting Historians. Bill stated: What I would like to see is an essay from your perspective on where the accounting profession was in 1973 and what have been the major changes (good or bad or indeterminate) over the intervening 5 decades to now. What were you doing back then, and what did you think the mission of the accounting profession was at that time? What significant developments happened since then to change your perspective, and how did they change the world of accounting? 1 I did not need any persuasion to accept this golden opportunity, which was an honor to receive and to prepare this reflection, with an eye to the future of accounting. Along came the pondering of the past, while reflecting ahead to the future of accounting. I was already of the view, however, that accounting had yet to reach its full potential in the early 2020s (Carnegie, Parker, and Tsahuridu 2021a, 2021b). The structure of this primarily reflective viewpoint is as follows. The next section presents reflections on the state of the accounting profession in 1973, when I was a keen and curious second-year undergraduate accounting student in Geelong, VIC, Australia and subject to the influence of key academic mentors at that time. There follows a section depicting reflections on the significant developments in the accounting profession across the following five decades to the time of writing and how these changed the world of accounting and, more broadly, the world in which we subsequently live 50 years later in 2022. Concluding comments of a prospective nature focus on how accounting can shape a better world from 2023. The comments on an earlier iteration of this manuscript by Lee Parker are acknowledged with appreciation. Garry D. Carnegie, RMIT University, College of Business and Law, Department of Accounting, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Editor’s note: Accepted by Editor William H. Black. Submitted: September 2022 Accepted: October 2022 Early Access: June 2023 1 W. H. Black, email message to author, June 8, 2022. 1 ACCOUNTING HISTORIANS JOURNAL Vol. 50, No. 1 June 2023 pp. 1–8 American Accounting Association DOI: 10.2308/AAHJ-2022-023