India, Nov. 2 -- How the Audit Trail Heralded Financial Accountability and International Supreme Institution,

P Sesh Kumar turns what might seem like a dry subject-the history of auditing and public finance-into an intellectual odyssey across empires, religions, and revolutions.

Published by The Browser, the book is both a global history of accountability and a meditation on the moral architecture of the state. At its core, Kumar argues that audit is civilisation's conscience - the mechanism by which power explains itself to the governed. Long before modern democracies and corporate regulators, rulers in India, China, and the Islamic world had already discovered that unchecked authority corrodes itself.

From Kautilya to Xi: A 2,000-Yea...