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A review by dear_old_world
The Condensed Wealth of Nations, And, the Incredibly Condensed Theory of Moral Sentiments by Eamonn Butler
3.0
Having not yet read The Wealth of Nations myself, I can only assume that this essentially achieves what it sets out to do. In any case, it is certainly well-explained and simply written and as such, easy to follow.
However, I found myself very frustrated by the fact that I simply could not read this in any really critical way because it is written so much like a textbook. It makes statements as though they are facts, and because I am no expert in economics, I feel fundamentally ill-equipped to judge whether or not those statements are truly valid. I think it is probably important for a person to read the source material and only use this as a refresher later on. I intend to do this myself, so that I can have a better understanding of how Smith came to his conclusions and decide for myself the merit they hold.
However, I found myself very frustrated by the fact that I simply could not read this in any really critical way because it is written so much like a textbook. It makes statements as though they are facts, and because I am no expert in economics, I feel fundamentally ill-equipped to judge whether or not those statements are truly valid. I think it is probably important for a person to read the source material and only use this as a refresher later on. I intend to do this myself, so that I can have a better understanding of how Smith came to his conclusions and decide for myself the merit they hold.