Adam Smith -- an Introduction

Adam Smith (1723-90) is generally regarded as the founder of economics as a separate discipline; he has been called both the Adam and the Smith of modern economics. According to Joseph Schumpeter's History of Economic Analysis, Smith's life was uneventful and sheltered and (p. 182) "no woman, excepting his mother, ever played a role in his existence." Smith was Professor of Moral Philosophy at Edinburgh (1748-51) and Glasgow (1751-63). His two major books were The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759) and the Wealth of Nations (1776), which Schumpeter (p. 181) claims is "the most successful not only of all books on economics but, with the possible exception of Darwin's Origin of Species, of all scientific books that have appeared to this day."

More brief online biographies:

  1. In Edinburgh
  2. In Washington
  3. In Australia, with a summary of The Theory of Moral Sentiments
  4. A somewhat longer one in the Netherlands
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