Evaluating Adam Smith

Evaluating Adam Smith

Adam Smith is well recognized as the forefather of modern economics, but his success can be attributed not only to what he wrote but also to his use of language. In this exciting new book, Willie Henderson shows how Smith engaged creatively in writing about the economy, and analyzes the extent to which he tried to ensure that the reader is drawn into the text and informed by it. Demonstrating analysis methods that are helpful to new researchers on Smith’s works, Evaluating Adam Smith sets his work in the cultural context of the eighteenth century and explores the lexical and conceptual inter-relations between Smith and the sources he consulted. Issues explored include Smith’s use of irony and his work in the context of wealth, virtue and happiness as presented in the Moral Sentiments and the Wealth of Nations. Henderson’s informative study employs the literary techniques of close reading and close textual analysis and applies them to sustained passages of Smith’s writing.

Evaluating Adam Smith

The Adam Smith Review Volume 7

Adam Smith’s contribution to economics is well-recognised but in recent years scholars have been exploring anew the multidisciplinary nature of his works. The Adam Smith Review is a refereed annual review that provides a unique forum for interdisciplinary debate on all aspects of Adam Smith’s works, his place in history, and the significance of his writings to the modern world. It is aimed at facilitating debate between scholars working across the humanities and social sciences, thus emulating the reach of the Enlightenment world which Smith helped to shape. The seventh volume of the series contains contributions from specialists across a range of disciplines, including Christopher Berry, Maureen Harkin, Edith Kuiper, N.B. Leddy, Catriona Seth, Henry C. Clarke, Deidre Dawson, Dionysios Drosos, Ioannis A.Tassopoulos, Jeremy Jennings, Ryan Patrick Hanley, Fotini Vaki, Spiros Tegos, Nicholas J. Theocarakis, Chandran Kukathas, Donald Winch, Fonna Forman, Craig Smith, Nicholas Phillipson, Chad Flanders, Emily Nacol, Andrea Radasanu, Rachel Zuckert, Michael L. Fraser, Ian S. Ross, Daniel B. Klein, Douglas J. Den Uyl, James A. Harris, Geoffrey Kellow, Paul Dumouchel, Jan Horst Keppler, Paul Oslington, Adrian Walsh, Spencer J. Pack, and Dennis C. Rasmussen. Topics examined include: Smith and Women Adam Smith in Greece Nicholas Phillipson's Adam Smith: An Enlightened Life Michael L. Fraser's The Enlightenment of Sympathy: Justice and the Moral Sentiments in the Eighteenth Century and Today