tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1740670447258719504.post1193633235112800771..comments2024-03-27T03:00:27.024-04:00Comments on Facts & other stubborn things: Adam Smith LinksEvanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12259004160963531720noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1740670447258719504.post-6486803326186757622010-09-09T13:10:33.292-04:002010-09-09T13:10:33.292-04:00The way people tend to talk about Hobbes just driv...The way people tend to talk about Hobbes just drives me sort of crazy. If you can get past him trying to turn everything into geometry, there is lot more there than the oft-quoted "nasty, brutish and short" line. <br /><br />Actually, it was "Empire *for* Liberty" that I was recommending . It looks at the lives of six Americans (from Franklin to John Adams to Dulles to Wolfowitz) as a discussion of the development of American foreign policy. Richard H. Immerman is the author. Yeah, the phrases "Empire of Liberty" and "Empire for Liberty" are oft-quoted because Jefferson used them.<br /><br />Woods' book (Empire *of* Liberty) is his discussion of the early republic - it is a general text, but you are talking about a general text by Woods on the subject (and it is quite in-depth for a general text). Anyway, it is part of the series on American history by Oxford University Press. "What God Hath Wrought" is the next in the series that I plan on reading.<br /><br />Also, the next book I plan to read is a new biography of John Calvin. But the Smith bio will be right after that.Xenophonhttp://myob.myob.myob.myob.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1740670447258719504.post-56180974652144272272010-09-09T12:52:30.954-04:002010-09-09T12:52:30.954-04:00Was it Woods you were recommending to me the other...Was it Woods you were recommending to me the other day? I was looking at Amazon but I wasn't quite sure what you were recommending - lots of books by that name or something like it.dkuehnhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10136690886858186981noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1740670447258719504.post-7694120457451072952010-09-09T12:51:47.380-04:002010-09-09T12:51:47.380-04:00Ya - I didn't even think of it from that angle...Ya - I didn't even think of it from that angle. He's probably being unfair to both Smith and Hobbes :)<br /><br />I don't think you have to even go to Moral Sentiments, though - as DeLong points out, it's all in Wealth of Nations.<br /><br /><br />I believe Vernon Smith has written on this before - that the alleged contradiction between MS and WN is no contradiction at all, simply a differential application.dkuehnhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10136690886858186981noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1740670447258719504.post-4680828318655960812010-09-09T12:50:48.115-04:002010-09-09T12:50:48.115-04:00I'll read the Smith bio once I finish Wood'...I'll read the Smith bio once I finish Wood's "Empire of Liberty" and tell you what I think.Xenophonhttp://myob.myob.myob.myob.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1740670447258719504.post-45494382352585107352010-09-09T12:49:41.913-04:002010-09-09T12:49:41.913-04:00Apparently Bartram has never read "The Theory...Apparently Bartram has never read "The Theory of Moral Sentiments." <br /><br />The thing about Hobbes is that the dominant reading people have about him is sort of the precis they gathered as undergraduates (people rarely read the entire Leviathan - they generally read less than 10% of the work in fact). That precis - amongst other things - ignores the gaping loopholes that Hobbes allows where the sovereign has no authority. The Hobbesian narrative in the precis is a clean one, but it completely the tremendous nuance that Hobbes wrote with.Xenophonhttp://myob.myob.myob.myob.comnoreply@blogger.com