An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations

Adam Smith has written the first book on modern economics. Adam Smith was an 18th century moral philosopher and political economist. Smith was a major figure in the Scottish Enlightenment period. His main publications were two treatises: The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759), and An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1776). An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations describes the political economy at the beginning of the industrial revolution. This work is the first written in defense of free market policies. The basic concepts expressed by Smith in this work are division of labor, pursuit of self-interest, and freedom of trade.