Adam Smith is a name that will be familiar to most people. The ‘father of Economics’ is a famous historical figure with statues in his honour and his likeness on the £20 note. But most people have little idea why he is famous or what he said

This is a pity, because although Smith lived in Scotland in the eighteenth century, his ideas are as alive and relevant today as they have been at anytime in the last 250 years.

Craig Smith, Lecturer in the Scottish Enlightenment, University of Glasgow, explores how, in a world of globalisation, Smith’s study of international and domestic trade cuts straight to the heart of the forces that shape all our lives. When we look around the world at the millions being raised from poverty in India and China, we see the forces that Smith sought to understand. Smith helped to shape the world that we live in and there’s no better place to begin to understand that world than the writings of this modest Scottish Philosopher.