Reading ‘Adam Smith’: Desire, History, and Value

This innovative volume, by Michael Shapiro, is not about Adam Smith in the sense in which about is usually understood, for it is neither a comprehensive explication of his views nor a careful tracing of the sources of them. Instead it is a confrontation. This is a book about modernity whose vehicle is a reading of Adam Smith - it is an enactment of the convention that despite the contribution Smith made to creating and legitimating the conceptual space for modern, commercial, liberal, and democratic society, his views are inadequate for those who want an effective, politicized understanding of the present. Shapiro’s ultimate goal in this examination is to exemplify a way of doing political theory - one that challenges some traditional ways of constructing and celebrating the ‘political theory cannon.