Subjects
Adam Smith: An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations:
Edited by William Playfair
With a new introduction by William Rees-Mogg
978 1 85196 342 3: 234x156mm: £250.00/$425.00
Availability: Japan: Maruzen
This is the first opportunity for modern scholars to have easy access to the first edited edition of The Wealth of Nations. Edited by William Playfair (the Scottish economist and inventor of the bar and pie-charts) and published in 1805, it is the first and most important early critical edition of Smith.
William Playfair wrote supplementary chapters and notes to this great work to discuss the issues which he thought Smith would have wanted to address, had he lived to see the effects of the French Revolution. He was the first to apply economic history to Adam Smith's economic theory. The period between 1776 and 1805 saw an enormous development in Britain's wealth, the American and French inflations and the French Revolution. Playfair raised at least two issues which are still important today: How can free markets exist without political order? How can free markets survive deliberate monetary inflation by the government authority? They remain highly relevant for scholars and economists at the close of the twentieth century. Playfair's chapters and notes are clearly marked as supplementary chapters and he has retained Adam Smith's exact text from the corrected, third edition.
Since Adam Smith we have experienced 220 years of repeated revolutions and inflations. The Wealth of Nations is one of the greatest works of economic thought and the Playfair edition is one of the most important critical editions.
Contents
Volume 1
Introduction by William Rees-Mogg
Preface by William Playfair
The Life of Dr Smith by William Playfair
Introduction and Plan of the Work
Book I - Chapters I-XI
Of the Causes of Improvement in the Production Powers of Labour, and of the Order according to which its Produce is naturally distributed among the different Ranks of the People
Book II - Chapters I-II
Of the Nature Accumulation and Employment of Stock
Volume
Book II - Chapters III-IV
Of the Nature, Accumulation and the Employment of Stock
Book III - Chapters I-IV
Of the different Progress of Opulence in different Nations
Book IV - Chapters I-VIII Of Systems of Political Oeconomy
Supplementary chapters
Volume 3
Book IV - Chapter IX
Of Systems of Political Oeconomy
Book V - Chapters I-III
Of the Expenses of the Sovereign or Commonwealth
Supplementary chapters
Index
|
|