The Wealth of Nations

For years I have looked around for a really nice hardback edition of The Wealth of Nations without finding one. But this new edition is splendid, the sort of thing I am pleased to have on my shelf, and which would make a fine gift too.

Adam Smith was the first to see that the measure of a nation's wealth was not money, but the industry and enterprise of its people. That a thriving and growing economy could lift whole nations out of poverty. And that the keys to economic growth were incentives, free enterprise, and productivity. That makes The Wealth of Nations just as relevant today as when it was written. So I am delighted to see this handsome new edition.

An enormously useful feature of this edition is the selection of famous quotes at the beginning. Smith's insightful epigrams such as "It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest" and his famous remarks on the "invisible hand" can be hard to find in the original, but here they all are, laid out easily and accessibly. There is also a brief guide which explains to the reader what Smith was trying to do in each section of the work, which makes reading it much easier.

Dr Eamonn Butler, Director, Adam Smith Institute