Synopses & Reviews
"Jerry Muller has written an extraordinarily good book on the most quoted and least read of the worldly philosophers."
--Robert Heilbroner, Author of The Worldly Philosophers"A good work of intellectual history should exemplify two qualities above all: an imagination that allows the author to 'pass over' into the horizon of his subject in order to see the world as the subject sees it; and a sympathy such as to gain a feel for the world of the subject. . . . Like Adam Smith, his subject, intellectual historian Jerry Muller exemplifies these traits to an exceptional degree."--Michael Novak, First Things
Review
"Muller's great accomplishment in this book is to present a clear, thoughtful, and engaging overview of Adam Smith's thought. He reveals Smith to be a wide-ranging and innovative thinker who formulated a comprehensive social science."--Peter McNamara, The Review of Politics
Review
"A profoundly erudite and timely study."--John Gray, National Review
Review
A profoundly erudite and timely study. John Gray
Synopsis
Counter to the popular impression that Adam Smith was a champion of selfishness and greed, Jerry Muller shows that the Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations maintained that markets served to promote the well-being of the populace and that government must intervene to counteract the negative effects of the pursuit of self-interest. Smith's analysis went beyond economics to embrace a larger "civilizing project" designed to create a more decent society.
Synopsis
Counter to the popular impression that Adam Smith was a champion of selfishness and greed, Jerry Muller shows that the Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations maintained that markets served to promote the well-being of the populace and that government must intervene to counteract the negative effects of the pursuit of self-interest. Smith's analysis went beyond economics to embrace a larger "civilizing project" designed to create a more decent society.
Synopsis
"Jerry Muller has written an extraordinarily good book on the most quoted and least read of the worldly philosophers."--Robert Heilbroner, Author of
The Worldly Philosophers"A good work of intellectual history should exemplify two qualities above all: an imagination that allows the author to 'pass over' into the horizon of his subject in order to see the world as the subject sees it; and a sympathy such as to gain a feel for the world of the subject. . . . Like Adam Smith, his subject, intellectual historian Jerry Muller exemplifies these traits to an exceptional degree."--Michael Novak, First Things
Description
Includes bibliographical references (p. [240]-262) and index.
Table of Contents
| Introduction: Back to Adam? | 1 |
Pt. I | Adam Smith in His Time | |
1 | Cosmopolitan Provincial: Smith's Life and Social Milieu | 15 |
2 | Gentlemen, Consumers, and the Fiscal-Military State | 28 |
3 | Self-Love and Self-Command: The Intellectual Origins of Smith's Civilizing Project | 39 |
Pt. II | Designing the Decent Society | |
4 | The Market: From Self-Love to Universal Opulence | 63 |
5 | The Legislator and the Merchant | 77 |
6 | Social Science as the Anticipation of the Unanticipated | 84 |
7 | Commercial Humanism: Smith's Civilizing Project | 93 |
8 | "The Impartial Spectator" | 100 |
9 | The Historical and Institutional Foundations of Commercial Society | 113 |
10 | The Moral Balance Sheet of Commercial Society | 131 |
11 | The Visible Hand of the State | 140 |
12 | Applied Policy Analysis: Smith's Sociology of Religion | 154 |
13 | "A Small Party": Moral and Political Leadership in Commercial Society | 164 |
Pt. III | From Smith's Time to Ours | |
14 | Critics, Friendly and Unfriendly | 177 |
15 | Some Unanticipated Consequences of Smith's Rhetoric | 185 |
16 | The Timeless and the Timely | 194 |
| Notes | 206 |
| Guide to Further Reading | 240 |
| Acknowledgments | 262 |
| Index | 265 |