A Smith For All Seasons

Michael Novak reviews Adam Smith in His Time and Ours: Designing the Decent Society, by Jerry Z. Muller, at First Things.

"...the ideal intellectual history is judged not only by the accuracy of its hold on its subject, but also by the judiciousness and wisdom with which it places that subject in history. Muller’s skill in this respect is especially impressive, since in the past Smith’s work, while having been supremely important to practical men and women of affairs and, of course, economists, has been much less carefully studied by philosophers and moralists."

See Smith, An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, in Great Books of the Western World (first edition, 52 Vol., 1952) volume 39 and (second edition, 60 Vol., 1990) volume 36.