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Excerpt from An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of Wealth of Nations Adam Smith, political economist and moral philosopher, was born in Kirkcaldy, Scotland, June 5, 1723. His father, a lawyer and customs official, died before the birth of his son, who was brought up through a delicate childhood by his mother. At fourteen he teas sent to the University of Glasgow, where he came under the influence of Francis Hutcheson, and in 1740 he went up to Oxford as Snell exhibitioner at Balliol College, remaining there till 1746. After leaving Oxford, he gave lectures upon English Literature and Economics, and in 1751 became professor of logic, and in 1752 of moral philosophy, at Glasgow. The reputation won by his lectures was increased by the publication, in 1759, of his "Theory of the Moral Sentiments," one result of which was his appointment as travelling tutor to the third Duke of Buccleuch. In this capacity he spent nearly three years in France, and made the acquaintance of many of the intellectual leaders of that country. Returning to Britain in the end of 1766, he lived chiefly in Kirkcaldy and London, working upon his "Wealth of Nations," which was finally published in 1776. It met with immediate success, and in a few years had taken an authoritative place with both philosophers and men of affairs. In the following year Smith was appointed a Commissioner of Customs, and took a house in Edinburgh, where he lived quietly and at ease till his death on July 17, 1790. Political economy had been studied long before Adam Smith, but the "Wealth of Nations" may be said to constitute it for the first time as a separate science. The work was based upon a vast historical knowledge, and its principles were worked out with remarkable sanity as well as ingenuity, and skilfully illuminated by apt illustrations. In spite of more than a century of speculation, criticism, and the amassing of new facts and fresh experience, the work still stands as the best all-round statement and defence of some of the fundamental principles of the science of economics. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

Book details

Book category Books in English Economics, finance, business & management Economics

• Full title: Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of Wealth of Nations (Classic Reprint)
• Author: Adam Smith
• Language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 600
• EAN: 9781440094569
• ISBN: 9781440094569
• ID: 09862355
• Publisher: Forgotten Books
• Weight: 789 g
• Dimensions: 229 × 152 × 31 mm
• Date of publishing: 03. July 2015

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