A History of the West After Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations With Niall Ferguson | Hoover Institution
About this episode
Jon Hartley and Niall Ferguson discuss the impact of Adam Smith's work and the evolution of empires and economic thought in the modern era.
Jon Hartley and Niall Ferguson explore Niall's career, the power of networks in his books The House of Rothschild volume one (1998) and volume two (1999), and The Square and the Tower (2017); the rise and fall of empire in his books Empire (2003) and The Great Degeneration (2013), America’s global role in his book Colossus (2005), and the enduring legacy of Adam Smith on the 250th anniversary of The Wealth of Nations—as well as the Anglosphere, economic growth, and the rise of 21st-century socialism. Recorded on March 23, 2026. ABOUT THE SERIES Each episode of Capitalism and Freedom in the 21st Century, a video podcast series and the official podcast of the Hoover Economic Policy Working Group, focuses on getting into the weeds of economics, finance, and public policy on important current topics through one-on-one interviews. Host Jon Hartley asks guests about their main ideas and contributions to academic research and policy. The podcast is titled after Milton Friedman‘s famous 1962 bestselling book Capitalism and Freedom, which after 60 years, remains prescient from its focus on various topics which are now at the forefront of economic debates, such as monetary policy and…
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