Authentic Adam Smith; his life and ideas

Adam Smith-unable to speak for himself has been sadly mistreated. His theories supplanted after his death by John Stuart Mill's writings on political economy, Smith became, in our era, the puppet of conservatives, the ideological father of unregulated business and small government. Politicians such as Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan promoted Smith's famous 1776 book, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, as the bible of laissez-faire economics.

In this vigorous, crisp, and accessible book, James Buchan refutes much of what we think we know about Adam Smith and shows that, in fact, Smith transcends modern political categories. Along the way, we see Smith the man-his some times troubled friendship with David Hume, his urbanity, his hypochondria, and his sole Continen tal voyage, when he played chaperone to two of his wealthy students.

Buchan has drawn this portrait from twenty five years of research, and he demonstrates that Smith's famous books, The Wealth of Nations and his 1759 masterpiece, The Theory of Moral Senti ments, are just the brilliant fragments of one of the most ambitious philosophical enterprises ever attempted: the search for a just foundation for modern commercial society both in private and in public. In an increasingly crowded and discon tented world, this search is ever more urgent.