‘Adam Smith: What he thought and why it matters’, by Jesse Norman

Review by Richard Seebohm

A close-up of the book cover. | Photo: allen lane.

Jesse Norman’s new book is a bravura manifesto of how our politics and economics should be run. Many of us may have heard of The Wealth of Nations with its conceptualisation of markets and the ‘invisible hand’ that steers them. But Adam Smith also wrote its later chapters with much more nuanced ideas. His other vital book, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, is less well known.

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