ABSTRACT
La Ciudad en Llamas (The City in Flames) by David Casassas, who received his doctorate in sociology from the University of Barcelona, has a dual purpose: one academic and the other political. In the properly academic realm, the author works to identify Adam Smith as a paradigmatic exponent of the tradition he calls ‘commercial republicanism’. His political motivation leads him to propose the theory of Smith – with appropriate adjustments to the times – as a political alternative for the contemporary world. While these two objectives could theoretically remain independent, in his efforts to defend the virtues of commercial republicanism the author runs the risk of developing an interpretation of Smith’s texts that is somewhat unilateral, failing to recognize and discuss the abundant arguments of other scholars that situate Smith closer to liberalism or, at least, are nuanced in their presentation of his proposal.
