Who recommends it
- How Writing Can Change The WorldArticle
Smith’s groundbreaking work is considered the foundation of modern economics. It argued for free trade and laissez-faire capitalism, and against government intervention in the economy.
- Barry EichengreenInterview
There’s an impossible question. It’s similarly impossible not to start with The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith. Smith is known for his cogent analysis of how markets work, and of how they enable prosperity by facilitating exchange, specialization and division of labor. But the book contains much more. For instance…
- John AshcroftInterview
The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith. Only an economist could get excited about eighteen steps to complicate the process of making a pin.
- The Most Important Economics BooksReading list
The Wealth of Nations is the book that laid the foundation of economics as a discipline, authored by the father of the subject, Adam Smith. The “invisible hand” of markets which he wrote about during the advent of the Industrial Revolution established how markets work through the invisible forces of supply and demand…
- Jason SchenkerInterview
- Linda YuehInterview
- Dani RodrikInterview
The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith is timeless and remains indispensable. Reinventing the Bazaar: A Natural History of Markets by John McMillan is a great book that can be read for fun by anyone to understand how markets work in real life. To bring the story up to date and show how economists think about contemporary…
- Daron AcemogluInterview
- Diane CoyleInterview
I don’t think anything has ever knocked Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith off the top perch.
- Jon GruberInterview
The Wealth Of Nations by Adam Smith. Rarely can an entire discipline the size of economics be traced to a single book, but this was the book that started it all.
- Tim HarfordInterview
Often recommended alongside
The Undercover Economist
Thinking Strategically
Freakonomics
On the Origin of Species
Fire and FuryMore books by Adam Smith our guests recommend
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