
The Life of Adam Smith
Ian Simpson Ross(Author)
Oxford University Press
2nd Edition
Published on 23. September 2010
Book
Hardback
624 pages
978-0-19-955003-6 (ISBN)
Description
This new edition of The Life of Adam Smith remains the only book to give a full account of Smith's life whilst also placing his work into the context of his life and times. Updated to include new scholarship which has recently come to light, this full-scale biography of Adam Smith examines the personality, career, and social and intellectual circumstances of the Scottish moral philosopher regarded as the founder of scientific economics, whose legacy of thought - most notably about the free market and the role of the state - concerns us all. Ian Simpson Ross draws on correspondence, archival documents, the reports of contemporaries, and the record of Smith's publications to fashion a lively account of Adam Smith as a man of letters, moralist, historian, and critic, as well as an economist. Supported with full scholarly apparatus for students and academics, the book also offers 20 halftone illustrations representing Smith and the world in which he lived.
Reviews / Votes
What makes the second edition of The Life of Adam Smith remarkable is that it strives to be two things simultaneously. First, it remains an intellectual biography, following Smith's life year by year and connecting published observations to actual events...The second aim of the book is to absorb the new scholarship into Ross's old narrative...This intellectual biography is as much intellectual as it is biography; it is built on textual scholarship as well as historical narrative. * Philosophy in Review *More details
Edition
2nd Revised edition
Language
English
Place of publication
Oxford
United Kingdom
Edition type
Revised edition
Illustrations
20 halftones
Dimensions
Height: 235 mm
Width: 162 mm
Thickness: 38 mm
Weight
1054 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-19-955003-6 (9780199550036)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions

Ian Simpson Ross
The Life of Adam Smith
E-Book
09/2010
2nd Edition
OUP eBook
€81.99
Available for download
Previous edition
Ian Simpson Ross
The Life of Adam Smith
Book
10/1995
Clarendon Press
€70.57
Article exhausted; check for reprint
Person
Ian Simpson Ross is the biographer of Lord Kames, Smith's patron, and of the Scottish poet William Dunbar, and has edited, with E C Mossner, Smith's correspondence for the Glasgow edition of his works. He is Professor Emeritus of the University of British Columbia.
Content
1. Kirkcaldy ; 2. Boyhood ; 3. Glasgow ; 4. The Never to be Forgotten Hutcheson ; 5. Oxford ; 6. A Respectable Auditory ; 7. Lectures on the History of Philosophy and Law ; 8. Called to Glasgow University ; 9. Teacher ; 10. Publishing Scholar and Administrator ; 11. The Making of the Theory of Moral Sentiments ; 12. Criticism of the Theory of Moral Sentiments ; 13. Travelling Tutor ; 14. Transition ; 15. Inquirer into the Wealth of Nations ; 16. The American Crisis and the Wealth of Nations ; 17. Euge! Belle! Dear Mr Smith ; 18. Dialogue with a Dying Man ; 19. Settlement in Edinburgh ; 20. Economic Theorist as Commissioner of Customs ; 21. Literary Pursuits ; 22. Times of Hardship and Distress ; 23. Legacy for Legislators ; 24. The Precariousness of this Life ; 25. The Great Change ; Bibliography