"Norman’s book is directed toward that, at times elusive, general educated reader, and has, in my opinion, three objectives: (i) to situate Adam Smith in his time, both intellectually and politically, (ii) to argue that there is a remarkable consistency between the Adam Smith of the Theory of Moral Sentiments, Lectures on Jurisprudence and the Wealth of Nations, and (iii) to show that most of neoclassical and laissez-faire appropriations of Adam Smith are at best one-sided, and in many cases downright wrong. [...] The belief that Adam Smith was an unqualified supporter of the free market, anti-labor and pro-capitalist, or was always in favor of small government is just so much at odds with his writings that one is bewildered as to how such a caricature ever took hold. Recently, however, not least thanks to Amartya Sen’s writings, the 'real' Smith is much better known. Norman is here adding, I hope, the proverbial last nail into the coffin of the neoliberal caricature of Smith."

"By the time we reach the second part of his book, entitled simply 'Thought,' we possess the background knowledge – backed up by helpful insights from Norman – to understand how Smith’s thought developed. Smith soon emerges as very different from the buccaneering free marketer of myth. Norman’s revisionist assessment rejects both left- and right-wing caricature, detailing the complexity and some of the contradictions underlying Smith’s thought. [...] In its closing section, Norman’s book summarises the insights and details gleaned in previous pages to examine how Smith would react to contemporary issues such as rising inequality and crony capitalism. Unsurprisingly, Norman has to do most of the heavy lifting here. [...] Smith would doubtless have objected to concentrations of wealth, Norman argues, convinced as he was that monopolies are bad for everyone. But one of the consequences of the groundbreaking nature of Smith’s work, as well as its philosophical grounding, is that passages can be found across his writing to justify a wide array of opinions. That is not to say that he did not have opinions of his own – but Norman ably rescues the economist from the tangled weeds of his own popular legacy. [...] Smith’s thoughts cannot be taken individually or devoid of context. In demonstrating this, while also providing a well-researched and eloquent book for anyone interested in economic thought, Jesse Norman has achieved something both original and deeply impressive."

"Norman, whose own hinterland in political philosophy is, as he shows here and in his previous life of Edmund Burke, deep and considerable, seeks to rehabilitate Smith, who (though he does not explicitly say so) has clearly been tarnished by some sort of association with Margaret Thatcher and libertarian think-tanks. This is an unnecessarily squeamish approach. At the core of the book, between a brisk but thorough biographical essay and a somewhat less brisk (and indeed at times ponderous) assessment of Smith’s thought and its relevance to today, Norman sets out five myths about the Sage of Kirkcaldy and effectively demolishes some of them. [...] This book is well-written, well-argued and intensely thought-provoking, and it will rightly raise Smith’s posthumous reputation. I hope some of the author’s parliamentary colleagues summon up the moral and intellectual strength to read it."