Enterprise

Author Buchan breathes new life into Adam Smith's legacy and the beginnings of modern economics. Scottish philosopher Adam Smith (1723-1790) has been adopted by neoconservatives as the ideological father of unregulated business and small government. Politicians such as Thatcher and Reagan promoted his famous 1776 book The Wealth of Nations as the bible of laissez-faire economics. In this accessible book, Buchan refutes much of what modern politicians and economists claim about Adam Smith and shows that, in fact, Smith transcends modern political categories. He demonstrates that The Wealth of Nations and Smith's 1759 masterpiece, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, are brilliant fragments of one of the most ambitious philosophical enterprises ever attempted: the search for a just foundation for modern commercial society both in private and in public. In an increasingly crowded and discontented world, this search is ever more urgent.--From publisher description.

"H. W. Brands recounts the century-long battle for the lifeblood of American commerce and power, focusing on five men whose lives and actions indelibly affected the course of American financial history. The story of these men is the story of how America transformed itself from a squabbling collection of small states into the foremost economic power in the world."--Jacket.

"On the South Side of Chicago in the late 1940s, two immigrants - one a Jew born in Russia, the other a black Blues singer from Mississippi - met and changed the course of musical history. Muddy Waters electrified the Blues, and Leonard Chess recorded it. Soon Bo Diddley and Chuck Berry added a dose of pulsating rhythm, and Chess Records captured that, too. Rock & Roll had arrived, and an industry was born." "Rich Cohen tells the engrossing story of how Chess, with the other record men, made this new sound into a multi-billion-dollar business - aggressively acquiring artists, strong-arming distributors, riding the crest of a wave that would crash over a whole generation."--BOOK JACKET.