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› Find signed collectible books: 'Adam Smith in His Time and Ours: Designing the Decent Society'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations: New Interdisciplinary Essays'
First published in 1776, Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations is much more than just a handbook on the principles of free-market economics; it is a founding text for the organisation of Western society in its broadest sense. In order to understand the impact of Smith's text across the academic disciplines, this volume brings together leading scholars from fields of economics, politics, history, sociology and literature. Each essay offers a different reading of Wealth of Nations and its legacy. Contributors consider the historical context in which Wealth of Nations was written, its reception and its profound impact on contemporary concepts of market liberalism, on education, on gender relations and on environmental debates. The volume also offers deconstructive analyses of the text and a feminist critique of Smith's construction of the economy. This volume will be the ideal companion to Smith's work for all students of literature, politics and economic history. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Cliffsnotes Worldly Philosophers Notes'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Correspondence of Adam Smith'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Democracy in America'
Classic analysis of america's unique political character, quoted heavily by politicians and perennially popping up on history professors' reading lists. The book's enduring appeal lies in the eloquent, prophetic voice of alexis de tocqueville (1805-1859), a french aristocrat who visited the united states in 1831. A thoughtful young man in a still-young country, he succeede in penning this penetrating study of america's people, culture, history, geography, politics, legal system, and economy. Tocqueville asserts, i confess that in america i saw more than america; i sought the image of democracy itself, with its inclinations, its character, its prejudices, and its passions, in order to learn what we have to fear or hope from its progress [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Du Contrat Social'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Economic Sentiments: Adam Smith, Condorcet, and the Enlightenment'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'El Contrato Social / the Social Agreement'
Segun Rousseau, los hombres ceden mediante el contrato social el derecho ilimitado a todo cuanto les apetece. El clásico de este maestro en una edición espectacular y accesible. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Essays on Philosophical Subjects'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Fable of the Bees'
It used to be that everyone read the "notorious" Bernard Mandeville (1670-1733). He was a great satirist and come to have a profound impact on economics, ethics and social philosophy. "The Fable of the Bees" begins with a poem and continues with a number of essays and dialogues. It is all tied together by the startling and original idea that "private vices" (self-interest) lead to "public benefits" (the development and operation of society). [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Faiths of Our Fathers: What America's Founders Really Believed'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Free Trade and Moral Philosophy'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money'
From one of the most influential economists of the modern era, Keynes and his "General Theory" shaped economic thought and government policies for decades to come. Out of this magnum opus arose the Keynesian school of economics. Keynes argues that the level of employment in a modern economy was determined by three factors: the marginal propensity to consume (income that people chose to spend on goods and services), the marginal efficiency of capital (the rate used to see whether investments are worthy) and the rate of interest. This work has enormous implications to the present day in understanding the policies and that have shaped the current environment. "The General Theory is nothing less than an epic journey out of intellectual darkness. That, as much as its continuing relevance to economic policy, is what makes it a book for the ages. Read it, and marvel." - Paul Krugman, Professor of Economics, winner of the 2008 Nobel prize in economics. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Glasgow and the Enlightenment'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Great Books of the Western World'
The Iliad (Ancient Greek ?????, Ilias) is, together with the Odyssey, one of two ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer, a supposedly blind Ionian poet. The epics are considered by most modern scholars to be the oldest literature in the Greek language. The Iliad concerns events during the tenth and final year in the siege of the city of Ilion, or Troy, by the Greeks. The Odyssey (Greek: ????????, Odusseia)is commonly dated circa 800 to 600 BC. The poem is, in part, a sequel to Homer's Iliad and mainly concerns the events that befall the Greek hero Odysseus (or Ulysses) in his long journeys after the fall of Troy and when he at last returns to his native land of Ithaca. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Great Books of the Western World'
A Reader's Guide to Great Books of the Western World. Publisher: Robert P. Gwinn. Published by Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Heaven on Earth: The Rise and Fall of Socialism'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'How the Scots Invented the Modern World: The True Story of How Western Europe's Poorest Nation Created Our World & Everything in It'
"I am a Scotsman," Sir Walter Scott famously wrote, "therefore I had to fight my way into the world." So did any number of his compatriots over a period of just a few centuries, leaving their native country and traveling to every continent, carving out livelihoods and bringing ideas of freedom, self-reliance, moral discipline, and technological mastery with them, among other key assumptions of what historian Arthur Herman calls the "Scottish mentality."
It is only natural, Herman suggests, that a country that once ranked among Europe's poorest, if most literate, would prize the ideal of progress, measured "by how far we have come from where we once were." Forged in the Scottish Enlightenment, that ideal would inform the political theories of Francis Hutcheson, Adam Smith, and David Hume, and other Scottish thinkers who viewed "man as a product of history," and whose collective enterprise involved "nothing less than a massive reordering of human knowledge" (yielding, among other things, the Encyclopaedia Britannica, first published in Edinburgh in 1768, and the Declaration of Independence, published in Philadelphia just a few years later). On a more immediately practical front, but no less bound to that notion of progress, Scotland also fielded inventors, warriors, administrators, and diplomats such as Alexander Graham Bell, Andrew Carnegie, Simon MacTavish, and Charles James Napier, who created empires and great fortunes, extending Scotland's reach into every corner of the world.
Herman examines the lives and work of these and many more eminent Scots, capably defending his thesis and arguing, with both skill and good cheer, that the Scots "have by and large made the world a better place rather than a worse place." --Gregory McNamee [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Idea of Civil Society'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations: A Selected Edition'
While it has been pointed to time and again by governments and pundits promoting laissez-faire economics, the Wealth of Nations actually shows that Adam Smith viewed capitalism with a deep suspicion, and tempered his celebration of a self-regulating market with a darker vision of the dehumanizing potential of a profit-oriented society. Smith did not write an economics textbook, but rather a panoramic narrative about the struggle for individual liberty and general prosperity in history.
This edition includes generous selections from all five books of the Wealth of Nations. It also provides full notes and a commentary that places Smith's work within a rich interdisciplinary context. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations/2 Volumes in 1'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'John Maynard Keynes: The Economist As Savior, 1920-1937'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Lectures on Jurisprudence'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Liberal Ideal and the Demons of Empire: Theories of Imperialism from Adam Smith to Lenin'
As Great Britain and other Western nations built empires--both formal and informal--writers on economic and social questions developed theories to explain why and how advanced industrial states exercised control over colonial regions. Different schools of thought emerged: some anticipated the growth of a cosmopolitaneconomic order, others believed in a brutal imperialism necessary for an expanding capitalism, still others saw evil precapitalist forces at work. In The Liberal Ideal and the Demons of Empire, noted historian Bernard Semmel traces the evolution of the ideas about imperialism and discusses four major schools of thought: the classical economists, the social theorists, the national economists, and the Marxists.
From Adam Smith to Lenin, the subject of colonialism--and then imperialism--remained controversial. Although classical economists offered visions of a prosperous world economy based on free trade, and liberal idealists argued that rational self-interest would eliminate aggressive mercantilism and wars of conquest, such "utopian" ideals proved elusive. Even defenders of capitalism noted contradictions between the harsh realities of the emerging industrial system and the optimistic economic theories that attempted to describe it. In the end the critics--including liberal sociologists, national economists, and Marxists--would win the day by defining imperialism in terms of historic demons: feudal aristocrats, medieval usurers, and evil empires. These ideas, Semmel concludes, became props of the liberal, socialist, and fascist ideologies of our time.
"A generation ago, Richard Koebner traced the changing meanings of the word imperialism from its rather surprising Napoleonic beginnings. Now, building on a succession of books with which he has enriched the literature, Bernard Semmel addresses the wider question of the evolution in thought to which the evolution of the word was, so to speak, an index. Semmel's book will beunquestionably useful to historians--particularly those outside the confines of European expansion--and will be valuable as supplemental reading in college courses. One wonders if it will have the effect one would most like to see--on politicians, publicists, and praters who continue to use the word imperialism so inappropriately."--Robert K. Webb, University of Maryland, Baltimore County Bernard Semmel is Distinguished Professor of History at the Graduate School of the City University of New York. His studies of imperialism include Imperialism and Social Reform, Jamaican Blood and Victorian Conscience, and The Rise of Free Trade Imperialism. He has also written on Methodism, John Stuart Mill, and naval strategy.
[via]More editions of The Liberal Ideal and the Demons of Empire: Theories of Imperialism from Adam Smith to Lenin:

› Find signed collectible books: 'Life of Adam Smith'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Making of Modern Economics: The Lives and Ideas of the Great Thinkers'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Needs of Strangers'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'On Adam Smith`s Wealth of Nations: A Philosophical Companion'
Adam Smith was a philosopher before he ever wrote about economics, yet until now there has never been a philosophical commentary on the Wealth of Nations. Samuel Fleischacker suggests that Smith's vastly influential treatise on economics can be better understood if placed in the light of his epistemology, philosophy of science, and moral theory. He lays out the relevance of these aspects of Smith's thought to specific themes in the Wealth of Nations, arguing, among other things, that Smith regards social science as an extension of common sense rather than as a discipline to be approached mathematically, that he has moral as well as pragmatic reasons for approving of capitalism, and that he has an unusually strong belief in human equality that leads him to anticipate, if not quite endorse, the modern doctrine of distributive justice. Fleischacker also places Smith's views in relation to the work of his contemporaries, especially his teacher Francis Hutcheson and friend David Hume, and draws out consequences of Smith's thought for present-day political and philosophical debates. The Companion is divided into five general sections, which can be read independently of one another. It contains an index that points to commentary on specific passages in Wealth of Nations. Written in an approachable style befitting Smith's own clear yet finely honed rhetoric, it is intended for professional philosophers and political economists as well as those coming to Smith for the first time. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'On Moral Sentiments: Contemporary Responses to Adam Smith'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'On The Social Contract'
"Man was born free, but everywhere he is in chains." Thus begins Rousseau's influential 1762 work, in which he argues that all government is fundamentally flawed and that modern society is based on a system of inequality. The philosopher posits that a good government can justify its need for individual compromises and that promoting social settings in which people transcend their immediate appetites and desires leads to the development of self-governing, self-disciplined beings. A milestone of political science, these essays are essential reading for students of history, philosophy, and other social sciences. G. D. H. Cole translation. [via]

› Find signed collectible books: 'On the Wealth of Nations'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'On the Wealth of Nations: Books That Changed the World'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'One Nation Under God: Religious Symbols, Quotes, and Images in Our Nation's Capital'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Reading "Adam Smith": Desire, History and Value'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Scottish Enlightenment: The Scots' Invention of the Modern World'
'Every Scot should read it. Scotland now has the lively, provocative and positive history it deserves.' Irvine Welsh, Guardian A dramatic and intriguing history of how Scotland produced the institutions, beliefs and human character that have made the West into the most powerful culture in the world. Arthur Herman argues that Scotland's turbulent history, from William Wallace to the Presbyterian Lords of the Covenant, laid the foundations for 'the Scottish miracle'. Within one hundred years, the nation that began the eighteenth century dominated by the harsh and repressive Scottish Kirk had evolved into Europe's most literate society, producing an idea of modernity that has shaped much of civilisation as we know it. He follows the lives and work of thinkers such as Adam Smith and David Hume, writers such as Burns and Boswell, as well as architects, technicians and inventors, and traces their legacy into the twentieth century. Written with wit, erudition and clarity, The Scottish Enlightenment claims the Scots' rightful place in the history of the western world. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Social Contract'
With the publication of The Social Contract in 1761, Jean-Jacques Rousseau took his place among the leading political philosophers of the Enlightenment. Like his contractarian predecessors (Thomas Hobbes and John Locke), Rousseau sought to ground his political theory in an understanding of human nature, which he believed to be basically good but corrupted by the conflicting inteerests within society. Here self-interest degenerated into a state of war from which humanity could only be extricated by the imposition of a contract. As a party to the compact, each individual would find his true interest served within the political expression of the community of man, or the "general will."What is the content of human nature and how does it compel mankind to come together to create a civil society? What form does this society take? What benefits does it offer its citizens, and what must each individual sacrifice to reap its rewards? How does sovereign power manifest itself, and what consequences follow for those who choose not to abide by the "general will"? Does Rousseau's political theory set forth a blueprint for democracyone that results in equality, universal suffrage, and popular sovereigntyor is it a recipe for central state totalitarianism? These are just a few of the complex questions that will confront readers of The Social Contract.Whatever their intent or iltimate result, Jean-Jacques Rousseau's views on the state and man's relationship to it have culminated in one of the most powerful and compelling pieces of political philosophy ever written. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Social Life of Information'
How many times has your PC crashed today? While Gordon Moore's now famous law projecting the doubling of computer power every 18 months has more than borne itself out, it's too bad that a similar trajectory projecting the reliability and usefulness of all that power didn't come to pass, as well. Advances in information technology are most often measured in the cool numbers of megahertz, throughput, and bandwidth--but, for many us, the experience of these advances may be better measured in hours of frustration.
The gap between the hype of the Information Age and its reality is often wide and deep, and it's into this gap that John Seely Brown and Paul Duguid plunge. Not that these guys are Luddites--far from it. Brown, the chief scientist at Xerox and the director of its Palo Alto Research Center (PARC), and Duguid, a historian and social theorist who also works with PARC, measure how information technology interacts and meshes with the social fabric. They write, "Technology design often takes aim at the surface of life. There it undoubtedly scores lots of worthwhile hits. But such successes can make designers blind to the difficulty of more serious challenges--primarily the resourcefulness that helps embed certain ways of doing things deep in our lives."
The authors cast their gaze on the many trends and ideas proffered by infoenthusiasts over the years, such as software agents, "still a long way from the predicted insertion into the woof and warp of ordinary life"; the electronic cottage that Alvin Toffler wrote about 20 years ago and has yet to be fully realized; and the rise of knowledge management and the challenges it faces trying to manage how people actually work and learn in the workplace. Their aim is not to pass judgment but to help remedy the tunnel vision that prevents technologists from seeing larger the social context that their ideas must ultimately inhabit. The Social Life of Information is a thoughtful and challenging read that belongs on the bookshelf of anyone trying to invent or make sense of the new world of information. --Harry C. Edwards [via]

› Find signed collectible books: 'Socialism: An Economic and Sociological Analysis'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Theory of Moral Sentiments'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'A Tract on Monetary Reform'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Wealth of Nations'
Political economy had been studied long before Adam Smith. But Wealth of Nations (1776) established it for the first time as a separate science. Smith based his arguments on vast historical knowledge, and developed his principles with remarkable clarity. What set this work apart was its statement of the doctrine of natural liberty. Smith believed that "man's self-interest is God's providence" - that if government abstained from interfering with free competition, the invisible hand of capitalism would emerge from the competing claims of individual self-interest. Industrial problems would be resolved and maximum efficiency reached. After more than two centuries, Smith's work still stands as the best statement and defense of the fundamental principles of capitalism. [via]
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Wealth of Nations: Adam Smith ; Introduction by Alan B. Krueger ; Edited, With Notes and Marginal Summary, by Edwin Cannan'
Economics. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Wealth of Nations: An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes'
Introduction by Robert ReichCommentary by R. H. Campbell and A. S. Skinner Adam Smith's masterpiece, first published in 1776, is the foundation of modern economic thought and remains the single most important account of the rise of, and the principles behind, modern capitalism. Written in clear and incisive prose, The Wealth of Nations articulates the concepts indispensable to an understanding of contemporary society; and Robert Reich's Introduction both clarifies Smith's analyses and illuminates his overall relevance to the world in which we live. As Reich writes, "Smith's mind ranged over issues as fresh and topical today as they were in the late eighteenth century-jobs, wages, politics, government, trade, education, business, and ethics." Includes a Modern Library Reading Group Guide From the Trade Paperback edition. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Wealth of Nations/Books I-III'
Back cover:
By pin-pointing the 'division of labour' as a major explanation of economic growth, Adam Smith laid the foundations of economic theory in general and of 'classical' economics in particular. But Andrew Skinner shows in his introduction to this edition that the real sophistication of The Wealth of Nations lies less in its overall picture of a vast analytical system - a capitalist economy - in which all the parts can be seen simultaneously interacting with each other. Moreover, he stresses that Smith's view of society was mot a merely economic one, and that The Wealth of Nations is for from being an apologia for unregulated business enterprise: Smith was at pains to show that economic advance can have undesirable social consequences, and that labour which is economically unproductive can be beneficial to society at large. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Whys of a Philosophical Scrivener'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Wisdom of Adam Smith'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Wldy Plilos'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Worldly Philosophers: The Lives, Times, and Ideas of the Great Economic Thinkers'
What is economics? It is the science of how man satisfies his unlimited wants and needs with limited resources. This science has had many great innovators, and this book introduces the lives and ideas of several of them: namely Adam Smith, Karl Marx, Thomas Malthus, David Ricardo, John Maynard Keynes and Joseph Schumpeter. Written at a level accessible to laymen with a high school reading ability, this makes a great introductory work to the history of economic thought. Largely void of equations and graphs; this is not the book to learn about this curve or that curve. However, this is the book to learn about the development of capitalism, financial markets, socialism, globalization, employment policies, welfare economics, etc... Specifically, the six individuals covered in this book span the 1700s thru the 1900s, and contributed mightily to how governments, businesses, and intellectuals thought about the way people and nations make a living. Each of these economist lived in a different age with unique sets of challenges that faced the prevailing world order at that time. Each would produce works of thought that influenced millions of people. This book shows this relationship between each individual, their times, and their contributions to the body of economic thought. The book is laid out in chronological order, so the reader can see how as history changed, man's view of economics change, and likewise, how each economist's publications in turn changed history. Overall a good book; though somehow incomplete. This book deals solely with six economists of the Anglo-Saxon tradition; Europe and the US from the Industrial Revolution onwards. Other parts of the world such as Asia and the Middle East have contributed just as much to world economics; yet they are fully excluded from this book [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Los Porques De Un Escriba Filosofo'
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