Abstract

Smith was not optimistic about his free‐trade policy advice being readily accepted, as prejudice and special interests stood in the way, but he must have been gratified that his views received favourable attention by some of Britain's leaders, and that translations of his great work were stirring the minds of French inquirers into political economy and supporters of the coming revolution. In Germany, the reception of his ideas was marked by translations, reviews, assimilation into university teaching, then popularizations, and afterwards the fertilization of original thoughts about economics with application to the problems of the German‐speaking lands, stages that were paralleled across the globe. In 1787, Smith received the honour that gave him the greatest pleasure of his life: election as Rector of Glasgow University.