The Wealth of Nations Analysis

Like many British subjects in the 1700's, Adam Smith was pretty proud of how much more "civilized" England was than most of the other countries in the world. In his mind, even the lowliest worker i...

Adam Smith introduces himself in the first person in the introduction to The Wealth of Nations, but apart from that he writes in the third person and delivers his opinions as though they are pure f...

There's no real plot to this book. It's just Adam Smith laying out his ideas for how Britain can manage its economy better and provide better freedoms for its people. Along the way, he criticizes t...

Adam Smith ain't here to entertain us. He's here to teach us some important lessons about how modern countries should manage their economies. Open this book to any random page and you'll find Smith...

Adam Smith wants you to pay attention to what he says. And if you were reading this book in the 1700s, the only way he was going to do that was if he showed you he was an educated man who knew what...

Most people just call it The Wealth of Nations, but the full title of Adam Smith's book is An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. That's because Smith really wants to lay o...

If any of the provinces of the British empire cannot be made to contribute towards the support of the whole empire, it is surely time that Great Britain should free herself from the expence of defe...

Adam Smith tries hard to get his ideas across in a clear way, but the fact remains that this is an economics textbook from 1776. So, um, it's not the easiest of reads. Even when Smith does make his...

Why Rich, Why Poor?Adam Smith opens this book by saying that he wants to tell us all about why some countries are wealthier than others. He hopes that by doing so he'll be able to figure out the m...

Our hero Adam Smith is convinced that something is not quite right with the world. He feels "called" from his everyday life to write a book that will help Britain become the wealthiest country on...

The first third of this book focuses on the clear division that exists between the rich developed countries of the world and the poor undeveloped ones. Some people might think that the rich countr...

Here's a crazy one. Adam Smith was kidnapped at the age of four and then abandoned by his kidnapper. The world almost lost out on one of its great thinkers. (Source)Adam Smith's dad died six months...

There is nothing even close to steam in this book. If you can find even the slightest trace of something racy in it, you'll be the first… and you get a special prize "blood from a stone" prize.We...

Pliny the Elder (1.4.6)Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan (1.5.3).Plutarch (1.10.94).David Hume (2.2.50).John Locke (4.1.3).Gregory King (1.8.34).Isocrates (1.10.94)Julius Cesar (2.3.34).King John (3.3.9).Ch...