Welcome to Econ Talk, part of the Library of Economics and Liberty.

I'm your host, Russ Roberts of Stanford University's Hoover Institution.

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Today is October 27th, 2017, and my guest is Dennis Rasmussen.

He is a professor of political science at Tufts University and his latest book,

which is our subject for today's conversation, is the infidel and the professor.

David Hume, Adam Smith, and the friendship that shaped modern thought.

Dennis, welcome to Econ Talk.

Thanks for having me.

Your book is about Hume and Smith, their ideas, their friendship.

It's also about their place of origin, and where they spent most of their time,

most of their lives, 18th century Scotland.

You write, how did a nation that began the 18th century is a poor, backward outpost

on the fringe of Europe, managed to become such an intellectual powerhouse by the middle of the century?

Give us a quick answer to that question, because it's an extraordinary thing.

Sure, it is. The Scottish Enlightenment, as we now call it, is really one of the intellectual golden ages in the history of thought.

So when Hume and Smith are growing up, Scotland in the early 18th century is synonymous with poverty and barbarism and a sort of

dull or repressive form of Presbyterianism.

But during their lifetime, there's a vibrant new age of economic prosperity, cultural achievement that everybody notices people in Scotland,

...