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First edition of Adam Smith's ground-breaking analysis of capitalist economics, in which it was demonstrated that the impetus of individual greed would create wealth for the many. The book is of profound influence in the development of modern society, and its appearance in the same year as the American Declaration of Independence matched the burgeoning political freedom to the unfettering of economic activity. Printing and the Mind of Man aptly states: "Where the political aspects of human rights had taken two centuries to explore, Smith's achievement was to bring the study of economic aspects to the same point in a single work. The Wealth of Nations ins not a system, but as a provisional analysis it is completely convincing. The certainty of its criticism and its grasp of human nature have made it the first and greatest classic of modern economic thought." Printing & the Mind of Man 221; Rothschild 1897. With the bookplates of Agnes & Alfred Stern.