General Information
===================
 Title:                  On the Wealth of Nations: Books That Changed the World
 Author:                 P.J. O'Rourke
 Read By:                Michael Prichard
 Copyright:              2007
 Audiobook Copyright:    2007
 Genre:                  Economics
 Publisher:              Tantor Media
 Abridged:               No

Original Media Information
==========================
 Source:                 Audible

File Information
================
 Number of MP3s:         12
 Total Duration:         5:41:13
 Total MP3 Size:         196.27
 Parity Archive:         No
 Ripped By:              NMR
 Encoded With:           LAME
 Encoded At:             CBR 80 kbit/s 22050 Hz Joint Stereo
 ID3 Tags:               Set, v1.1, v2.3

Book Description
================
http://www.amazon.com/ORourke-Wealth-Nations-Books-Changed/dp/140010386X

Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
The famous satirist headlines a new series of Books That Changed the 
World," in which well-known authors read great books "so you don't have 
to." While irreverently dissecting Adam Smith's 18th-century antimercantilist 
classic, The Wealth of Nations, O'Rourke continues the dogged advocacy 
of free-market economics of his own books, such as Eat the Rich. His 
analysis renders Smith's opus more accessible, while providing the perfect 
launching pad for O'Rourke's opinions on contemporary subjects like 
the World Bank, defense spending and Bill Moyers's intelligence (or 
lack thereof, according to O'Rourke). Readers only vaguely familiar 
with Smith's tenets may be surprised to learn how little he continues 
to be understood today. As O'Rourke observes, "there are many theories 
in [The Wealth of Nations], but no theoretical system that Smith wanted 
to put in place, except 'the obvious and simple system of natural liberty 
[that] establishes itself of its own accord." Libertarian that he is, 
O'Rourke would probably agree that one shouldn't take only his word 
on Smith. Still, the book reads like a witty Cliffs Notes, with plenty 
of challenges for the armchair economist to wrap his head around. (Jan.)-
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. 
All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable 
edition of this title.

From The Washington Post
Reviewed by Daniel Gross

Back in 1776, a subject of the British Empire published a remarkably 
durable statement about the desires and striving of mankind and the 
deep human yearning for freedom. This document, whose verities echo 
and resonate throughout the generations, is regarded with something 
close to adoration.

Oh, and the Declaration of Independence was published that year, too.-

An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, the 
lengthy tome penned by Adam Smith, then a 53-year-old Scottish logician 
and economist, has had nearly as great an impact on mankind as the much 
shorter document inked by Thomas Jefferson. A staple of Great Books 
courses, The Wealth of Nations is a sort of Bible for free-market devotees. 
Like the Bible, however, it is more cited than read -- and frequently 
least read by those who cite it most. And so having a well-known, highly 
accessible writer introduce Smith's great work to contemporary audiences 
is a great idea. The guide for the perplexed is P.J. O'Rourke -- satirist, 
libertarian, author, wit.

It's an incongruous pairing. Smith embarked on a systematic, lengthy, 
earnest examination of the economic world. "My job is to make quips, 
jests, and waggish comments," O'Rourke states. But like chocolate and 
salt, this unlikely combination works well together. In this book, O'Rourke 
is a charming, highly literate blogger -- one who thinks before actually 
writing -- elucidating Smith's arguments and making insightful comments 
along the way. It's a safe bet the words "Talmud" and "P.J. O'Rourke" 
have never been used in the same sentence. Yet there is something slightly 
Talmudic to the approach.

O'Rourke nicely lays out Smith's chief contributions to our understanding 
of economic relationships and of the ways in which government policies 
can help or hinder trade. "Adam Smith cannot be said to have constructed 
the capitalist system," explains O'Rourke. "What he did was provide 
the logic of a level ground of economic rights upon which free enterprise 
could be built more easily." To a large degree, Smith was light years 
ahead of his time -- in arguing aggressively for free trade, in proclaiming 
the dignity of labor at a time when much labor was unfree, and in making 
the now obvious connections between the pursuit of sustenance and riches 
and the pursuit of life, liberty and happiness. "Smith saw the moral 
potential in both our interest in others and our self-interest," O'Rourke 
writes.

O'Rourke neatly highlights the inconsistencies and occasional contradictions 
inherent in Smith's view of capitalism. For instance, "the arguments 
for freedom in The Wealth of Nations are almost uncomfortably pragmatic." 
The Smith who comes through here is more aware of the limitations of 
free markets than many of the Financial Times-reading, regulation-loathing 
acolytes who swear by Smith today. Smith warned against greed. He favored 
progressive taxation. He was suspicious. ("People of the same trade 
seldom meet together . . . but the conversation ends in a conspiracy 
against the public.") At times, he sounds more like Eliot Spitzer than 
Milton Friedman.

While the Smith that emerges in these pages is frequently timeless, 
the same can't always be said for O'Rourke. Many of the targets of his 
quips are so obvious, the punch lines can be seen from across the Firth 
of Forth. There are entirely predictable smacks at Bill Moyers, PBS, 
Paris Hilton, Berkeley, conservationists, the United Nations, teachers' 
unions, liberal Democrats and the poor. On occasion, one wishes the 
Invisible Hand would smack O'Rourke upside the head, as when he argues 
that Smith wouldn't have proposed "rebuilding slums below sea level 
so college kids have a place to get drunk during Mardi Gras." Occasionally, 
this wag's a dog.

But O'Rourke does manage to tease out an interesting contradiction in 
Smith's work. Today, free market devotees tend to regard the free market 
and the attendant competition it spawns as a great leveler, as a guarantee 
that advantages earned in one generation don't automatically get passed 
on to successive ones. But such views are perhaps better associated 
with the 20th-century economist Joseph Schumpeter, who coined the term 
"creative destruction." O'Rourke points out that, forward-looking as 
Smith was, he was still a man of the 18th century. He was concerned 
with order, respectful of tradition and rank (he worked as a tutor for 
a duke for several years) and not particularly hostile to class. "The 
peace and order of society is more important than even the relief of 
the miserable," he wrote. Unlike the French philosophes across the channel 
who were seeking to reinvent the world, Smith sought merely to improve 
it.

Smith was clearly comfortable with some of the contradictions in his 
life and work. In 1778, he was named commissioner of customs for Scotland, 
following in the path of his father and other relatives in holding public 
positions charged with maintaining one of the great barriers to free 
trade -- taxes on imports. "Between book sales and the commissionership, 
Smith was making money with efforts to eliminate customs duties and 
with efforts to collect them," O'Rourke notes. "He wouldn't have thought 
it was as funny as we do. It was the family business."

Copyright 2007, The Washington Post. All Rights Reserved. --This text 
refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.