Abstract
Abstract: Istvan Hont’s book Politics in Commercial Society, the final work of one of the twentieth century’s great students of Adam Smith and the Scottish Enlightenment, presents a comparative study of the political theories of Smith and Rousseau. For students of the Smith-Rousseau relationship, it is valuable on two fronts, one methodological and one substantive. Yet the book is not the magnum opus for which some may have hoped. In light of this, the present essay has three aims: first, to call attention to the work’s most valuable substantive and methodological claims; second, to frame the book’s contributions by setting its claims in the context of recent scholarship; and third, to raise some questions regarding three of the book’s core theses.
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