The Everyman's Library version is abridged -- without being advertised as so, either on Amazon OR anywhere inside the book!

The Wealth of Nations is a pivotal work in the history of economics and human nature, but you'd be better off finding an edition that includes the entire work.The Wealth of Nations (Everyman's Library)

This is in my top 5 best books of all time. I give it an A+. It is a very long read that covers a broad range of information involving economics, but well worth the time spent. There are a lot of references to issues that were occurring during Smith's time that may not seem to be pertinent to the reader, but can still be applied to modern times. I most enjoyed the last sections of the book on taxes and public debts. His 4 maxims of taxes are that they should be- equal, certain, convenient, and beneficial. He viewed inflation as "extremely pernicious". The book contains ideas that Americans should possibly revisit in the near future.

The Kindle Modern Library ebook is messed up, unusual for Modern Library Kindles. It reproduces the Carman edition of 1904, a very thoroughly footnoted (or endnoted) version. Each footnote can be reached by clicking on the line where the note occurs -- but when you get to the notes, the first ten notes of each chapter are unnumbered, and you have to count, painfully, the number of square-bracketed notes, which are not even paragraphed separately. Since some of the notes are pages long, this counting can take a while. This is by far the most expensive Kindle edition of Adam Smith, and shouldn't have screwed up its notes -- the only reason for paying five extra dollars -- in this way.
Let me add that the Amazon reviewing mechanism is, as usual, inadequate for reviewing Kindle editions; my review ends up one of over fifty reviews discussing the book in general, not the Kindle edition specifically.

After some 6 months of buying Kindle books, I've found that the better-known publishers as often as not DON'T do a better job of formatting their titles for Kindle. The Modern Library's Kindle version of "The Wealth of Nations" is a case in point. The footnotes, which appear at the end of each chapter, are all run together in one big paragraph, without any numbers to show where each footnote begins. Moreover, while the footnote references in the text are linked, the links take you only to the start of the footnotes for that chapter, rather than to the pertinent footnote itself. A lesser problem is that the paragraphs in the text do not begin with indents; thus, the only way to tell when a new paragraph starts is if you come to a line that extends only halfway across the screen.

On the plus side, this edition does include the explanatory call-outs of the original (in italics at the end of each section they pertain to) and the lengthy 1906 explanatory introduction by Edwin Cannan (though for some reason not the introduction by Robert Rubin to the recent Modern Library paperback).

But it's a shame that Modern Library didn't do a better job with the formatting, especially since other Kindle publishers have made TWON available at a fraction of what Modern Library charges.

This book is so widely cited and interpreted contrary to the author's original thought, that every economist should read it completely to avoid being misled by such incorrect interpretations.

First, let us take the "invisible hand" metaphor. When I have studied economy in the University, I was taught that almost the entire book is devoted to the "invisible hand" which means "self-corrective markets", "liberalism", "Laissez-faire" and "state non-intervention". After reading this book, I have found out that Adam Smith did use the term "invisible hand" only once in the entire book, in the discussion of domestic versus foreign trade.

To illustrate the point, let me quote the text where term "invisible hand" is used: "First, every individual endeavours to employ his capital as near home as he can, and consequently as much as he can in the support of domestic industry, provided always that he can thereby obtain the ordinary, or not a great deal less than the ordinary profits of stock. Thus, upon equal, or nearly equal profits, every wholesale merchant naturally prefers the home trade to the foreign trade of consumption, and the foreign trade of consumption to the carrying trade. In the home trade, his capital is never so long out of his sight as it frequently is in the foreign trade of consumption. [...]Secondly, every individual who employs his capital in the support of domestic industry, necessarily endeavours so to direct that industry, that its produce may be of the greatest possible value. [...]As every individual, therefore, endeavours as much as he can, both to employ his capital in the support of domestic industry, and so to direct that industry that its produce maybe of the greatest value; every individual necessarily labours to render the annual revenue of the society as great as he can. He generally, indeed, neither intends to promote the public interest, nor knows how much he is promoting it. By preferring the support of domestic to that of foreign industry, he intends only his own security; and by directing that industry in such a manner as its produce may be of the greatest value, he intends only his own gain; and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention. Nor is it always the worse for the society that it was no part of it."

After reading this book, I have found out that Adam Smith was influenced by French Physiocrats. The Physiocrats saw the true wealth of a nation as determined by the surplus of agricultural production over and above that needed to support agriculture (by feeding farm labourers and so forth). Other forms of economic activity, such as manufacturing, were viewed as taking this surplus agricultural production and transforming it into new products, by using the surplus agricultural production to feed the workers who produced the extra goods. While these manufacturers and other non agricultural workers may be useful, they were seen as 'sterile' in that their income derives ultimately not from their own work, but from the surplus production of the agricultural sector.

I have found out that this book is not about "invisible hand" or "Laissez-faire". It is quite a complete study that covers almost every basic aspect of the economy, and remains an effective introduction to economics to this day.

This book is so often mischaracterized and politicized that I suggest you to read it completely by yourself. This is a must read for every economist. You can get an audio version of this book to avoid lengthy read.