How Adam Smith Can Change Your Life: An Unexpected Guide to Human Nature and Happiness.

• Author: Dalton, John T.
• Position: Book review

* How Adam Smith Can Change Your Life: An Unexpected Guide to Human Nature and Happiness

By Russ Roberts

New York: Penguin, 2014.

Pp. vi, 261. $27.95 hardcover.

Academics often struggle to communicate ideas to the wider public, but Russ Roberts has made a living doing just that and doing it well. His latest entry into the public discourse is a beautifully written guidebook to Adam Smith's other book, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, about how to live a full and virtuous life. It might seem strange for the author of An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, a book about commercial self-interest, to write a book about virtuous living. Members of the German Historical School thought so as well and labeled the seeming contradiction "das Adam Smith Problem." Smith scholars have since resolved the contradiction by arguing Smith was writing about two different spheres of life, the one dominated by impersonal interactions in which we rely primarily on our self-interest (The Wealth of Nations) and the other dominated by personal interactions requiring us to use more than just our narrow self-interest (The Theory of Moral Sentiments). Properly understood, both books become essential for understanding the Smithian view of the world and its relevance to our own lives and the way we organize society. The problem for modern readers--"das neue Adam Smith Problem," if you will-- is that Smith's foil relevance is obscured by the fact that The Theory of Moral Sentiments remains largely unread, undiscussed, and unappreciated. Roberts's new book helps pave the way to resolving "das neue Adam Smith Problem."

Roberts has written an easily accessible guidebook to The Theory of Moral Sentiments. As his title suggests, he conceives his book as a way to introduce the modern reader to Adam Smith the self-help author. Roberts does a fine job relating how we can use Smith's theory to improve our everyday lives and further connects the modern reader to Smith's thought by applying his theory to modern examples. These aspects of Roberts's book will resonate with a wider audience. However, the book can also be read as an introduction, a type of extended prologue, to The Theory of Moral Sentiments itself. One of the great strengths of Roberts's guidebook is that he allows Smith to speak directly to readers by use of extensive direct quotations from The Theory of Moral Sentiments. Roberts introduces direct quotations from Smith, elaborates on Smith's...