Adam Smith’s America: How a Scottish Philosopher Became an Icon of American Capitalism

How did Adam Smith, an eclectic 18th-century Scottish philosopher, become known as the patron saint of free-market economics? In Adam Smith's America, Liu traces how generations of Americans, from the Founding Fathers to Chicago economists, have read, reinterpreted, and weaponized Adam Smith's ideas. She reveals how his popular image as a champion of free market fundamentalism is a historical invention, and also how Smith continues to be a vehicle for articulating perennial moral and political anxieties about capitalism today.
Glory M. Liu is a Lecturer in Social Studies at Harvard. She received her PhD in Political Science from Stanford in 2018, holds an MPhil in Political Thought and Intellectual History from Cambridge University, and a B.A. in Political Economy and Classics from the University of California, Berkeley. Her work has appeared in Modern Intellectual History, Aeon Magazine, and The Nation. Adam Smith's America is her first book.
The Washington History Seminar is co-chaired by Eric Arnesen (George Washington University) and is organized by the American Historical Association. It meets weekly during the academic year. The seminar thanks its anonymous individual donors and institutional partner (the George Washington University History Department) for their continued support.

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Smith's Wealth of Nations has been in Project Gutenberg since 2001. A search shows that he used the word 'education' Eighty Times in the book but in 1776 50% of Brits were illiterate.
Searching for "and account" will turn up 5 instances of "read, write and account" not "read, write and arithmetic". Mandatory accounting/finance for most citizens could not have been implemented in Smith's day. The United States could have made accounting mandatory in the schools since Sputnik but neither the Left nor the Right has suggested such a thing.
Another factor is how technology changed in 200 plus years. Smith never saw a moving steam engine. He called them "fire engines". Steam locomotives were developed after his death but Marx could ride trains around Europe. Das Kapital is available to be searched also. Marx mentioned 'depreciation' 35 times in regards to Machinery, Money and Morality.
What is the annual depreciation of automobiles in the United States since Sputnik? Marx and Smith never got the opportunity to observe planned obsolescence and analyze how it relates to economics. Are Smith and Marx somewhat obsolete because technology has left them behind? Maybe modern economists are not smart enough to figure out what they would have noticed or maybe they are just rationalizing the new economic power game.

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There are many book review pods and video presentations, however, the format here is consistently top notch. How does one get a notification to the live event?