Reading the works of great thinkers in conjunction with the stories of their lives helps to build a fuller picture of the origins of their work, to emphasize the connections and disjunctions between their works and their lives, and to round out our images of the writer behind the work.
The Texts
Though contemporaries, Smith, Hume, and Washington are rarely examined together. These six distinctive volumes of essays and biography provide a humanistic glimpse of three unique lives and perspectives, all engaging with important questions about humans as moral, political, and economic beings. Readers who are interested in the Scottish Enlightenment, the American and French Revolutions, and other aspects of 18th-century history that are relevant to today will enjoy digging deeper through this curated bundle.
