It provided the foundation for economists, politicians, mathematicians, biologists, and thinkers of all fields to build upon. The result was a treatise which sought to offer a practical application for reformed economic theory to replace the mercantilist and physiocratic economic theories that were becoming less relevant in the time of industrial progress and innovation. The Wealth of Nations was the product of seventeen years of notes and earlier studies, as well as an observation of conversation among economists of the time (like Nicholas Magens) concerning economic and societal conditions during the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, and it took Smith some ten years to produce. Hamilton based much of this report on the ideas of Jean-Baptiste Colbert, and it was, in part, Colbert's ideas that Smith responded to, and criticised, with The Wealth of Nations. For example, Alexander Hamilton was influenced in part by The Wealth of Nations to write his Report on Manufactures, in which he argued against many of Smith's policies. It influenced several authors and economists, such as Karl Marx, as well as governments and organizations, setting the terms for economic debate and discussion for the next century and a half.

The Wealth of Nations was published in two volumes on 9 March 1776 (with books IвЂ“III included in the first volume and books IV and V included in the second), during the Scottish Enlightenment and the Scottish Agricultural Revolution. 3.1.1 Intellectuals, critics, and reviewers.2.5 Book V: Of the Revenue of the Sovereign or Commonwealth.2.4 Book IV: Of Systems of political Economy.2.3 Book III: Of the different Progress of Opulence in different Nations.

2.2 Book II: Of the Nature, Accumulation, and Employment of Stock.

2.1 Book I: Of the Causes of Improvement in the productive Powers of Labour.

Adam john such