Resources by Theme

Learn more about Smith the man, the scholar, and the teacher, as well as his historical surroundings. 

The Scottish Enlightenment reaffirmed our natural sociality while upholding the ideal of the individual. Learn more about it and explore the contributions of Adam Smith and his contemporaries.

Smith held a University 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. 

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.

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.

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