The Other Adam Smith

Mike Hill; Warren Montag

Published by Stanford University Press 2014

The Other Adam Smith

Mike Hill and Warren Montag

https://doi.org/10.1515/9780804793001

Overview
Contents

About this book

An account of Adam Smith that explores how his minor and major writings together constitute a comprehensive—if highly contestable—system of thought, this book looks at Smith's writing on knowledge, affect, sociability and government, and political economy in order to challenge both the old view of Smith as a narrow market fundamentalist and the new orthodoxy that casts him as a champion of self-restraint and the architect of humanized markets.

Author / Editor information

Mike Hill is Associate Professor of English at the University at Albany, SUNY. Warren Montag is Professor of English at Occidental College.

Reviews

Michael J. Shapiro, University of Hawaii:
"Hill and Montag's premise is that Adam Smith is a classic thinker in the best sense: No amount of rumination about his writings can exhaust their relevance. As their book demonstrates, no matter what happens in our capitalist world, we can be edified by returning to Smith's texts. Like Smith's writings, this excellent monograph will endure."

Steve Newman:
"The Other Adam Smith is a wide-ranging, subtle, and daring book...Anyone interested in Smith or in the intertwining of eighteenth-century philosophy and its historical moment should read this book. So should those interested in the uses and abuses of Smith that are bound to continue in the wake of the so-called populist elections in the United States and abroad."

Brian Glenney:
"This book is a welcome addition to Smith scholarship. It is a highly interdisciplinary and contextualized reading of Smith's works, contexts, and legacy."

Derek Wall:
"Mike Hill and Warren Montag argue, convincingly to my mind, that Adam Smith was a major thinker across a vast range of fields. In turn, they suggest not just the other Adam Smith but multiple others . . . Hill and Montag move us beyond interesting but limited binary debates to show that the, apparently, marginal focus on cruelty in Smith's work, has helped justify a political-economy of neo-liberal necro-economics . . . [A] rewarding book."

D.A. Robinson:
"This challenging, cogent study is the first serious overview of the career of Adam Smith (1723–90) . . . The authors' literary approach is refreshing: it is grounded in philosophy, history, and economics, disciplines that provide them with fascinating theoretical tools for reading Smith from a variety of perspectives."

Roberto Esposito:
"Dispensing with ideological and impartial interpretations, this book offers the first reading of Adam Smith's entire corpus. Reconstructing his work from every aspect and positioning it within the economic, philosophical, and anthropological debates of his time, it offers a radical interrogation of Smith in light of today's most pressing questions and theoretical discussions."

Eric Schliesser:
"This outstanding interdisciplinary achievement spans English literature, social theory, history of philosophy, history of the book, social theory, and political history in what is a socially important and largely original re-evaluation of the argument for a market society and Liberal political economy more generally."

Daniel O'Quinn:
"Mike Hill and Warren Montag's revelatory The Other Adam Smith reveals just how important Smith is to [the] debates on sovereignty and life . . . Hill and Montag's brilliant book challenges the reader to think about Adam Smith in new ways and for new purposes."

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
TABLE OF CONTENTS Publicly Available Download PDF	v
Acknowledgments Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Abbreviations, Acronyms, and Short Forms Publicly Available Download PDF	ix
Introduction: “A Tendency to Absence”: Which Other Adam Smith? Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
1. “The Pleasing Wonder of Ignorance”: Adam Smith’s Divisions of Knowledge Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	27
2. “Tumultuous Combinations”: The Transindividual from Adam Smith to Spinoza Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	105
3. “Numbers, Noise, and Power”: Insurrection as a Problem of Historical Method Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	147
4. “Immunity, the Necessary Complement of Liberty”: The Birth of Necro-Economics Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	235
Notes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	343
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	385

Language: English
Publisher: Stanford University Press
Audience: Professional and scholarly;
Pages
- Main content: 416
Keywords: economy; sympathy; progress; providence; insurrection; imagination; morality; multitude; poverty; secularization

eBook

Published: October 29, 2014
ISBN: 9780804793001