The Other Adam Smith represents the next wave of critical thinking about the still under-examined work of this paradigmatic Enlightenment thinker. Not simply another book about Adam Smith, it allows and even necessitates his inclusion in the realm of theory in the broadest sense. Moving beyond his usual economic and moral philosophical texts, Mike Hill and Warren Montag take seriously Smith's entire corpus, his writing on knowledge, affect, sociability and government, and political economy, as constituting a comprehensive-though highly contestable-system of thought. We meet not just Smith the economist, but Smith the philosopher, Smith the literary critic, Smith the historian, and Smith the anthropologist. Placed in relation to key thinkers such as Hume, Lord Kames, Fielding, Hayek, Von Mises, and Agamben, this other Adam Smith, far from being localized in the history of eighteenth-century economic thought or ideas, stands at the center of the most vibrant and contentious debates of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.
"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."
SEL Studies in English Literature 1500-1900
"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."
Ghent University
"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."
