Bookkeeping Through the Centuries (and why it matters)

Has bookkeeping changed much over the centuries? I start with ancient civilizations and how they were the first bookkeepers. I go on to the Romans and early merchants. Any civilizations that collected taxes or had established trade needed a system to track their finances. In the 20th Century we see what we now think of as modern bookkeeping. In the last 30 years, the introduction of computers significantly advanced bookkeeping into a modern artform.