Saving Adam Smith: A Tale of Wealth, Transformation, and Virtue
by Jonathan B. Wight (Prentice Hall, 2002, 323 pp., $24.00; ISBN:0-13-065904-5.)

 

A powerful novel connects Smith's markets to his morals….

How are social and moral capital created?  What role do ethical considerations play in economic progress?  Adam Smith’s theories, propounded in The Wealth of Nations and Theory of Moral Sentiments, demonstrate the virtues of self interest, yet it is a self interest circumscribed by the underlying fabric of social and ethical capital.  The invisible hand of Smith operates in a moral context. 

Saving Adam Smith summons Adam Smith back to life in an academic novel taken from today’s headlines. As the suspense builds we rediscover Adam Smith’s profound insight about society and economy: Humans are social animals and markets rely on social and institutional constraints. The books contains endnotes and a literature review.

Course Adoptions: University of Virginia, Vanderbilt University, Pantheon-Assas Paris II University, University of Rhode Island, Colorado State University, Texas Christian University, Brigham Young University, Flagler College, Indiana University, Perdue University, James Madison University, University of Wisconsin-La Crosse, La Salle University, Virginia Military Institute, Rutgers University, Hollins University, Angelo State University, St. Cloud State University, Gonzaga University, and University of Richmond, and translated into Chinese. 

"Wight's book is astonishingly good. The storytelling is as good as the business bestseller, The Goal, and the economics is better. A few more books like this and economics will no longer be the obscure and dismal science it now seems to the public."

--Deirdre McCloskey, Distinguished Professor of Economics, History, and English, University of Illinois at Chicago

* . . . Other Endorsements  

Learn More:

        * . . . Overview of Saving Adam Smith            * . . . Course Instructors Click Here!

        * . . . Read Chapter 1                                                * . . . Read the Preface

        * . . . Where to buy the book?                                  * . . . Links to other Adam Smith websites

        * . . . Link to my Academic Homepage           * . . . About the Author

        * . . . Link to Chronicle of Higher Education article on "Teaching the Ethic in Economics"

       * . . . Download a flyer for a friend                       * . . . University Adoptions

Click for Slide Show: "Adam Smith and the Moral Foundations of Capitalism"

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