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INTRODUCTION TO SYMPOSIUM: SMITH AT 300

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 February 2023

Pedro Garcia Duarte
Affiliation:
Pedro Garcia Duarte, Senior Research Fellow, INSPER Institute of Education and Research
Jimena Hurtado
Affiliation:
Jimena Hurtado, Professor, Economics Department, Universidad de los Andes.

Extract

“I have not the least doubt of it for you have made it of bread and butter instead of tea,” said Mr. Damer when Adam Smith, whom he was visiting that morning, declared “it was the worst tea he had ever met with” (Rae 1895, p. 238). The year 2023 marks the 300th anniversary of Smith, this absent-minded and introverted thinker, who enjoyed long solitary walks by the seaside more than anything else, was a fervent admirer of Voltaire, and became a familiar figure for those who saw him walk every morning to work at the Custom House in Edinburgh, absorbed in conversation with himself “with a bunch of flowers in his left hand, and his cane, held by the middle, borne on his right shoulder” (Rae 1895, pp. 329–330). A loyal friend and poor correspondent, Smith left an indelible mark during his life as a remarkable thinker and author of renowned books, which would, as Adam Ferguson wrote to him in April 1776, “form the opinions, and I hope to govern at least the coming generations” (Smith 1987, hereinafter Corr., p. 193).

Type
Symposium: Smith at 300
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the History of Economics Society

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Footnotes

Pedro Duarte thanks CNPq (306584/2019-0) for financial support, Email: jhet.editor@historyofeconomics.org

References

REFERENCES

Rae, John. 1895. Life of Adam Smith. London: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Smith, Adam. 1987. The Correspondence of Adam Smith. Edited by Mossel, Ernest Campbell and Ross, Ian Simpson. Indianapolis: Liberty Fund.Google Scholar
Stigler, George. 1971. “Smith’s Travels on the Ship of State.” History of Political Economy 3 (2): 265276.CrossRefGoogle Scholar