I developed interest in Adam Smith after reading the books by Paul Bloom, and he recommended this book. I picked it up to learn more about smith, and it was absolutely amazing. I highly recommend checking it out

2nd read:
During this difficult time I’ve been going through, I’ve been thinking about this book a lot because it really helped me the first time I read it. Russ Roberts breaks down Adam Smith’s less famous first book about living a good life. I started re-reading it yesterday and finished it within about a day. This book describes Adam Smith’s philosophy of living a good life in a way that anyone can understand, and I appreciate Russ Roberts taking the time to write it. The book helps put into perspective what we value and how we should treat other people. It was also really interesting how Roberts showed how Smith’s famous “invisible hand” is also a guide for how we can live a moral life. It bums me out to know that Smith is most famous for his economics and it’s often poorly referenced as an argument for this world of winner-take-all capitalism because when you understand Smith’s views on morality, you see how he’d probably have some criticisms of modern-day American capitalism and how we treat one another.

This was actually very insightful and enjoyable. Great perspective on several topics that affect your life. I definitely wouldn't have gotten very much out of reading Adam Smith directly.

Interesting concept with what seemed like middling execution. Everyone knows Adam Smith for being commonly misquoted about invisible hands and whatever nonsense the Randians are spewing nowadays. Something about not regulating bitcoin I think. I was surprised that Russ doesn't want to discuss Smith's best known "Wealth of Nations," no, Russ wants to talk about "The Theory of Moral Sentiments." In TTOMS, Smith talks about how to live a good life, which mostly seems to revolve around this quote:

“Man naturally desires, not only to be loved, but to be lovely; or to be that thing which is the natural and proper object of love.”

It's a good quote. A great quote even. Smith has some good, traditional old-privileged-white-man wisdom to share about being "lovely" which roughly equates to acting in good conscience and being a moral and helpful person.

And as such, this book started really strong, but unfortunately it didn't build on that concept much and ended up stalling out about halfway through. I was impressed with the prescience that it seems Smith had. Russ set himself up for a banger of a book. But sadly, it seemed like the author recycled the same few core ideas around "being lovely" with a smattering of slightly different examples for the second half of the book. It's like going on a road trip, leaving town with no traffic, finding cheap gas to fill up the car with, clean windshield and empty road in front of you, only to have your radiator blow 20 miles outside of town. Lots of build up for a big disappointment.

Adam Smith's other book

Economist Russell Roberts provides a great introduction into Adam Smith's lesser known but equally important book, "The Theory of Moral Sentiments". Inspired by his podcast and discussions with Dan Klein, Roberts wrote this book to distill these ideas for a greater audience. Smith's book was written in 1759 and revised throughout his life, it provides the underpinning of moral sense in how man interacts with society at large. These ideas are important in understanding the ideas in "The Wealth of Nations". A must read for capitalists and probably even more so for socialists!