Our Great Purpose

“Ryan Patrick Hanley has provided a succinct, witty and informative work on the relevance of Adam Smith today, mercifully released from the old ‘father of capitalism’ misrepresentation… . An excellent primer on the true Smith.”—Stuart Kelly, Scotland on Sunday”[Adam] Smith had a way of pulling all aspects of human society together, from eating and drinking with friends to trading on the stock exchange. To separate them destroys the larger picture… . While Smith never advocated ‘a single best way for all people to live,’ … [he] deftly connected all human activity into a single, philosophical portrait, and Our Great Purpose makes a compelling case for us to study it closely.”—David J. Davis, Wall Street Journal“An accessible, erudite, and concise introduction to Adam Smith in full, the moral philosopher of wisdom and prudence.”—Jordan Ballor“

Hanley is a distinguished political scientist at Boston College who has specialized in Smith; here in thirty short chapters he concentrates his accumulated expertize to deliver an Ariadne’s thread to guide the reader through the multiple issues Smith introduces and explores… . This should be passed out to all beginning students of Economics.

Ryan Patrick Hanley is professor of political science at Boston College. He is the author of Adam Smith and the Character of Virtue and the editor of Adam Smith: His Life, Thought, and Legacy (Princeton) and the Penguin Classics edition of Adam Smith’s The Theory of Moral Sentiments.