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Learn more about Smith the man, the scholar, and the teacher, as well as his historical surroundings. Read original essays, excerpts from Smith's work, and more. 

Adam Smith is one of the luminaries of a larger movement known as the Scottish Enlightenment. The thinkers involved reaffirmed our natural sociality while upholding the ideal of the individual. Learn more about the Scottish Enlightenment and explore the contributions of Smith and his contemporaries.

Better known today as an economist, Smith never held that title during his lifetime. Smith held a chair in Moral Philosophy, and his first published work, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, is a testament to the origins of his exploration into what makes man tick. Explore with Smith here.

While Smith is often named as the “father of economics,” the discipline we know today in many ways bore little relation to Smith's line of study. Explore the origins of the study of man's natural propensity to truck, barter, and exchange in this section.

In 1776, Adam Smith published An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. It was also the year the American colonies declared their independence from Great Britain. Neither event occurred in a vacuum. 

Adam Smith was surrounded by more than a vibrant university life. The larger culture around him naturally influenced his thought as well, and in many of his lectures and essays, Smith paid a good deal of attention to just such things.