The Wealth of Nations
By Adam Smith
Categories: Business & Money
Published in 1776, at the dawn of the Industrial Revolution, Adam Smith's book set out to explain what makes nations prosperous. Smith shows how dividing work into specialized tasks multiplies what people can produce, using his famous example of a pin factory. He argues that when people pursue their own interests through free exchange, they often benefit society without meaning to, an idea later summed up as the "invisible hand." Its ideas still shape how we think about markets.