Griswold has succeeded in writing a perfectly unreadable book. Let
us begin with the title, which is meaningless. The book is neither
about virtue nor the Enlightenment, except in the trivial sense
that Smith was an Enlightenment writer. Anyone picking up this book
to learn about the Enlightenment as a movement will be disappointed.
So Griswold appends a useless chapter on the Enlightenment to the
beginning of the book that promises a wide-ranging treatment of
the Enlightenment that rest of the book cannot deliver. (Perhaps
his editor, fearing that a book on Adam Smith's moral theory would
not reach a large audience, encouraged Griswold to broaden the appeal.
Too bad it didn't work). Griswold's book is, more accurately, a
treatment of Smith's neglected treatise A Theory of Moral Sentiments.
As such it is not a careful commentary on the content and structure
of the book, but instead a meandering tourist guide to the major
landmarks accompanied by a dull paraphrase of Smith's argument. Too make things worse, Griswold updates Smith's arguments
in the language of contemporary philosophy so that he can seem relevant
and prescient. This is strange coming from a quasi-Straussian, but
there you go. If that weren't bad enough, Griswold has a fussy,
collegial, and unhurried style, like a voluble visitor standing
in the doorway. As for the thrust or drift of Griswold's argument,
unfortunately I couldn't detect it. There are chapters on Smith
on love, skepticism, stoicism, religion, justice, passiona, etc.,
but the accumulation of detail doesn't add up to anything. The book
is also advertised as the first full-length treatment of Smith's
political and moral thought. That is wrong, but Griswold seems to
mistake that for an invitation to touch on every facet of Smith's
thought without regard for relevance. Griswold would have been better
served if he had been guided by the structure of Smith's own book
than by his own wandering attention. For Griswold, the 400-so
me pages of his book are one long opportunity to clear his throat. Get to the point!

Put on your scuba gear - we're diving down deep. Even though Charles L. Griswold, Jr. writes in a dense, academic style, it is worth swimming through his prose to learn about the remarkable work of 18th-century Enlightenment philosopher Adam Smith. Regarded as one of the fathers of modern economic thought, Smith has been misunderstood for the last century because his ethical philosophy has been overlooked. Instead, economists have drawn attention only to his thumbs-up for free enterprise and free trade. Smith believed neither was worthwhile without ethics, a point some modern economists might profitably revisit. We [...] highly recommend this richly detailed, insightful book to anyone interested in economic, political, or social philosophy.

Griswold's book is pitched squarely between the academic of, and the interested newcomer to, the Enlightenment. It gives a refreshingly new outlook over enlightenment ideas as a whole, to illustrate the back drop to Adam Smith's moral notions. In examining the key themes in 'The Theory Of Moral Sentiments' with reference to Smith's whole body of work, Griswold is rare in attributing, to the work, the importance and weight it deserves. Books that focus on Adam Smith's moral philosphy are rare and this book is by no means a weak example of them. If you are at all interested in Adam Smith, and particularly those interested in 'The Wealth of Nations' you need to look at his moral roots, and Griswold's book is an excellent secondary text to look at.