Evaluating Adam Smith: Creating the Wealth of Nations

ISBN-13: 9780415336680 / Angielski / Twarda / 2006 / 192 str.

Willie Henderson

Opis

This important new book builds on the understanding that Adam Smith's "Wealth of Nations "is best viewed as a cultural document, created within the context of eighteenth century notions of human nature, economy and argument, and that familiarity and rhetoric played a part in its success.
Using discourse analysis, Henderson explores Smiths rhetorical strategies, relationships with his sources and readers, and his way of constructing his economic vision in writing. He expertly demonstrates techniques of text analysis to the reader in ways that promote a critical reading of Smith and which the reader can then transfer to the analysis of other texts relevant to the intellectual history of economics.
Of great interest to those in the fields of economics and Marxism, Henderson's book evaluates the "Wealth of Nations "as a text of historical and modern-day significance.

Spis treści

Preface and Acknowledgements.  1. Reading the Wealth of Nations and Smith’s Other Writings  2. How does Smith Achieve a Synthesis in Writing?  3. Nature’s Dupes: Irony and Economic Agency in Smith’s Writing  4. The Political Economy of Castle Rackrent: Maria Edgeworth and Adam Smith  5. Exemplification Strategy in Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations  6. A Very Cautious, or a Very Polite, Dr. Smith? Hedging in the Wealth of Nations  7. Natural and Human Institutions: Reading for Argumentation in Book Three of the Wealth of Nations  8. Adam Smith’s Construction of History and Story: The Analysis of Primogeniture

O autorze

Willie Henderson is Professor of continuing education/director, centre for lifelong learning at the University of Birmingham, UK.