1st Edition

The Routledge Guidebook to Smith's Wealth of Nations

By Maria Pia Paganelli Copyright 2020
    276 Pages
    by Routledge

    276 Pages
    by Routledge

    Adam Smith (1723–1790) is famous around the world as the founding father of economics, and his ideas are regularly quoted and invoked by politicians, business leaders, economists, and philosophers. However, considering his fame, few people have actually read the whole of his magnum opus The Wealth of Nations – the first book to describe and lay out many of the concepts that are crucial to modern economic thinking. The Routledge Guidebook to Smith’s Wealth of Nations provides an accessible, clear, and concise introduction to the arguments of this most notorious and influential of economic texts. The Guidebook examines:

    • the historical context of Smith’s though and the background to this seminal work
    • the key arguments and ideas developed throughout The Wealth of Nations
    • the enduring legacy of Smith’s work

    The Routledge Guidebook to Smith’s Wealth of Nations is essential reading for students of philosophy, economics, politics, and sociology who are approaching Smith’s work for the first time.

    1. Adam Smith and the Scotland of his days

    2. Introduction and Book I of The Wealth of Nations, Chapters 1-3

    3. Book I, Chapters 4-7

    4. Book I, Chapters 8-10

    5. Book I, Chapter 11

    6. Book II

    7. Book III

    8. Book IV, Chapters 1-4

    9. Book IV, Chapters 7-9

    10. Book V, Chapter 1

    11. Book V, Chapters 2-3

    12. Legacy.

    Index

    Biography

    Maria Pia Paganelli is Professor of Economics at Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas. She is an editor of The Oxford Handbook on Adam Smith (with Christopher Berry and Craig Smith) and Adam Smith and Rousseau: Ethics, Politics, Economics (with Dennis C. Rasmussen and Craig Smith). She is the President of the International Adam Smith Society.

    "Maria Pia Paganelli’s latest volume upends this paradigm of economization. A leading Smith scholar and historian of economic thought, Paganelli’s book expands rather than narrows the def­i­nition of what it means to publish a condensed “guidebook” to Smith’s Wealth of Nations."

    -Glory M. Liu, Harvard University