Human Documents of Adam Smith's Time

First published in 1974, this is not a ‘life’ of the founder of the science of economics, although it opens with a biographical sketch; nor is it an analysis of The Wealth of Nations, although it contains numerous pointed quotations from it. Rather, it is a presentation of Adam Smith against his background of time and place, eighteenth century Britain on the eve of the Industrial Revolution.

The first chapter consists of ‘documents’ illustrating life in London: ‘low life’ be it noted, which ...