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On the 300th anniversary of the birth of Adam Smith, author Jesse Norman explores his life and captures the febrile surroundings of Enlightenment Edinburgh. Considering Smith’s legacy, he dispels the myths and debunks the caricatures that have grown around the economist in the centuries since he first presented his ideas.

In 1746 Smith returns home from Oxford inspired by dazzling and subversive texts - such as Hume’s ‘Treatise of Human Nature’ - to reflect on human nature and wider society.

Abridged by Rosemary Goring
Read by Robin Laing
Producer: Eilidh McCreadie

Jesse Norman is the Conservative MP for Hereford and South Herefordshire and Minister of State in the Department for Transport. Previous publications include a celebrated study of Edmund Burke, and his debut novel The Winding Stair, a historical thriller set in the Elizabethan court, was published in the summer.