Adam Smith: An Enlightened LifeAdam Smith is celebrated all over the world as the author of The Wealth of Nations and the founder of modern economics. A few of his ideas - that of the 'Invisible Hand' of the market and that 'It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest' - have become icons of the modern world. Yet Smith saw himself primarily as a philosopher rather than an economist, and would never have predicted that the ideas for which he is now best known were his most important. This book, by one of the leading scholars of the Scottish Enlightenment, shows the extent to which The Wealth of Nations and Smith's other great work, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, were part of a larger scheme to establish a grand 'Science of Man', one of the most ambitious projects of the European Enlightenment, which was to encompass law, history and aesthetics as well as economics and ethics. |
From inside the book
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... trade was being dislocated by international war and English competition , and when the entire fabric of Scottish political life was being unsettled by a rapidly deteriorating pattern of Anglo - Scottish relations and by constant ( and ...
... trade , importing goods from England , Ireland and the Low Countries in exchange for locally produced coarse cloth ... trading port was at its height . But the town's economy was beginning to face difficulties ,
... trade was severely disrupted by the Dutch Wars of the Restoration , and more severely still by the wars in the reigns of William III and Anne . Worse still , the town suffered badly from the Union , which brought increased English ...
... trades , and on entrepreneurs to supply them with raw materials and a market for their goods . The lairds of Fife were to play a crucial part in developing the industry in their part of the country in the early years of the century ...
... trade.9 In 1733, it was producing 177,740 yards of stamped linen per year for England and the home market; by 1743 production had nearly doubled, and by the time of Smith's death in 1790, output was running at about 900,000 yards, worth ...
Contents
1695 | |
1699 | |
1709 | |
1719 | |
1741 | |
Oxford and David Hume | |
Edinburghs Early Enlightenment | |
a Conjectural History | |
Smith and the Duke of Buccleuch in Europe 17646 | |
London Kirkcaldy and the Making of the Wealth of Nations 176676 | |
The Wealth of Nations and Smiths Very violent attack upon the whole commercial system of Great Britain | |
Humes Death | |
Last Years in Edinburgh 177890 | |
Epilogue | |
Notes and Sources | |
Bibliography of Works Cited | |
Professor of Moral Philosophy at Glasgow 1 17519 | |
The Theory of Moral Sentiments and the Civilizing Powers of Commerce | |
Professor of Moral Philosophy at Glasgow 2 175963 | |
Index | |