Welcome to Econ Talk, part of the Library of Economics and Liberty. I'm your host Russ Roberts

of George Mason University and Stanford University's Hoover Institution. Our website is econtalk.org

where you can subscribe, find other episodes, comment on this podcast, and find links to

another information related to today's conversation. Our email address is mailadicontalk.org. We'd

love to hear from you. It's March 30th, 2009, and my guest today is Dan Klein of George Mason

University. Our topic for today is Adam Smith's lesser-known masterpiece, The Theory of Moral

Sentiments. In today's podcast, we'll talk about some of the key ideas of the book, and for those

who are interested, we'll do a series of bonus podcasts to be released on Wednesdays, reading

through the book, part by part, and talking about the ideas in more depth. We're calling

at the econtalk book club, if you'd like to read a long or comment, head to www.econtalk.org-bookclub1word.html,

and you'll find links to an online version of the book you can read without charge, or how

you can order the book from Liberty Fund at a discount if you'd like a hard copy. That

page will also give you the tentative schedule of what we'll be reading when, if you'd like

to follow along. We expect the first bonus podcast to cover part one of the book, and to

air on Wednesday, April 15th, so if you'd like to read part one in advance, you can get

started. Wednesday, April 15th will be the day we'll be talking about that part. This

week's podcast, a regular Monday release, will be a standalone introduction to the book

of sorts, an overview about some of the key ideas. Dan, welcome back to econtalk, and

thank you for being our guide to the theory of moral sentiments.

Thanks very much.

Now, first a little background. The book was written in 1759, first published in 1759.

It was revised, and I think the final edition came out in 1790. It's beginning and it's

...