Adam Smith on the Ancients and the Moderns

The classics heavily influenced many aspects of European modern culture, yet it is not easy to trace their intellectual power on any author. In this volume, Gloria Vivenza takes on the impressive task of examining how philosophy, history, literature, politics, and ethics all played a part in shaping Adam Smith’s thought as a scholar, philosopher, and economist.

This book will be of interest to advanced students and researchers in the history of economic thought, the history of philosophy, moral philosophy, political theory, and the Enlightenment.

Gloria Vivenza studied at the Faculty of Letters in the University of Padua, then she began her academic career as Professor of Economic History at the University of Catania, and History of Economic Thought at the University of Verona. She is Life Member of the Clare Hall college in the University of Cambridge, U.K. She analysed the relevance of the classical training in Adam Smith’s works in her book Adam Smith and the classics, and in several essays on the same subject.