Adam Smith and the crisis of the American Union

Within a few years of its publication in 1776, Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations became the textbook for the new-now ‘classical’-economics that would ultimately transform the political economies of the ‘civilised’ world. The Scottish philosopher’s assault on the premises of mercantilist statecraft affirmed and elaborated the Enlightenment’s apotheosis of free, unfettered commerce, offering his readers a compelling vision of a progressive, prosperous, and peaceful new world.