Adam Smith: An Enlightened Life

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Adam Smith: An Enlightened Life by Nicholas Phillipson Yale University Press * 2010/2012 * 352 pages $32.50 hardcover; $23.00 paperback

Reviewed by Martin Morse Wooster

Anyone who reads Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations or The Theory of Moral Sentiments would want to know more about the author of those classic works. The Library of Congress says there are at least 300 works in several languages about Smith, but only about a dozen biographies, including James Buchan's The Authentic Adam Smith (2006).

There are two reasons there aren't many Adam Smith biographies. First, Smith, like so many intellectuals of his time, was not a man who enjoyed baring his soul in …