TheWealthofNationsBooksI-III

THE WEALTH OF NATIONS ADAM SMITH was born at Kirkcaldy, on the east coast of Scotland, in 1723. He was educated at his local school, then Glasgow University (1737–40), where he studied under Francis Hutcheson, and Balliol College, Oxford (1740–46). Two years after his return to Scotland, Smith moved to Edinburgh, where he delivered lectures on Rhetoric which did much to establish his early reputation. In 1751 he was appointed Professor of Logic at Glasgow, but was translated to Hutcheson’s old chair of moral philosophy in 1752. He held this appointment until 1764, during which tenure he published, in 1759, The Theory of Moral Sentiments. In 1764 Smith resigned his professorship to become tutor to the young Duke of Buccleuch. This office took him to France, where he travelled extensively, and met many of the leading thinkers of the day, among them Voltaire, Quesnay, Turgot and Helvetius. Smith continued to write The Wealth of Nations in France and furthered his research after his return to Britain in 1766. The book was published in 1776, the same year as the American Declaration of Independence. In 1778 Smith was appointed as......