Adam Smith

Review: The Right-Wing Abuse of Adam Smith

by Kim Phillips-Fein

Glory M. Liu's account of Adam Smith's reception in America explains how American politicians read selectively in Smith's capacious writings on political economy and public morality to construct a self-interested view of the market as a natural phenomenon, writes historian Kim Phillips-Fein. 

Libertarianism's Philosophers Come Out Worse For Wear

by Rebecca Brenner Graham

A fellowship at a leading libertarian institute convinced the author that the movement sees its luminaries as icons, not as historical figures. 

Adam Smith Resolved the Identity-Distribution Debate—Why Is it Forgotten?

by Corey Robin

The political scientist Corey Robin considers a new book on Adam Smith's thought, and the role it played in posing questions about the purpose of the economy, and its relationship to individuals a selves embedded in society. 

Virtue and Vice: Looking for the Real Adam Smith

by Glory Liu

Smith's work on political economy has long been seen in tension with his investigation of empathy and other moral sentiments. Paul Sagar's new book argues that scholars have mistaken Smith's intentions in order to falsely reconcile the market and morality. 

The American Exception: How Faith Shapes Economic and Social Policy

by Benjamin M. Friedman

Historian Benjamin Friedman's new book examines the importance of changing religious ideas in American Protestantism as influences on the development of social and economic policy. Part of the concluding chapter is excerpted here. 

MMT and Why Historians Need to Reclaim Studying Money

by Rebecca Spang

Historians need to reclaim money as something to be studied in specific social and political contexts.