A book written by Adam Smith which by common consent has changed the way man thinks about the world. The book focuses on the Political Economy now commonly called economics and was considered by most to be the first comprehensive book on the subject.
Smith was the first proponent of the idea that a country's wealth was nothing to do with bank balances or property but more to do with what its workers produce in the course of a year. According to Smith a wealthy country is one in which there is sufficient of the "necessaries and conveniences of life" to go round. He was also an advocator of The Division of Labour which he believed was central to maintaining a modern society free from barbarism.