Best Paper at the Columbia Conference - in my view

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Gavin Kennedy

I have saved until last, what for me, was a report on the most impressive thinker who contributed a paper to the Columbia University Conference, ‘Reclaiming Adam Smith’, New York, Saturday 23 September.

Istvan Hont, Faculty of History and Department of Politics, Cambridge University, author of 'Jealousy of Trade: International Competition and the Nation State in Historical Perspective' (Belknapp, Harvard, 2005), delivered his paper, ‘Adam Smith’s Political Theory: the history of European law and Government, ancient and modern.’

As mentioned several times already, the authors applied the convention of no citations or quotations, and in Istvan Hont’s case this is an absolute bind, because his paper was so good I cannot but heap praise upon him for it. He covered an major theme on which I am writing at present as my contribution on Adam Smith for Palgrave’s Great Thinkers in Economics series.

Coincidentally, I left the Friday evening reception for participants and walked to the university book shop (Barnes and Noble). While browsing to no intent or purpose, I came across Hont’s book, Jealousy of Trade: International Competition and the Nation State in Historical Perspective, and bought a copy. I commenced reading it on return to my hotel, an activity I continued through dinner at a pavement restaurant in Columbus Avenue, and from 3 am (NY time) next morning (8am Edinburgh time) until it was time to leave for Saturday’s morning session. Thus, before I began listening to Istvan Hont reading his paper, I was already deep into his earlier work.

To say Istvan Hont read is paper may be an exaggeration. By then I had a copy of his paper and it did not seem to me that he was reading from it. He spoke without looking at his paper, almost extemporary, covering his themes with the self-assurance of someone who knew his material cold.

He apologised for his (Hungarian) accent while speaking English, commentating that when he returns to Budapest, his Hungarian friends complain of his English accent while speaking Hungarian! You can believe I listened carefully to his every word and wondered at the intellectual environment of Cambridge University that has amidst it such talented scholars. No wonder on matters about Adam Smith it has the strongest claim to be the premier university on Britain (anyway, Smith did not think kindly of his time at Balliol, Oxford).

Hence, my frustration. However, I have now nearly finished reading Jealousy of Trade, as stunning a success as you could hope to read on Adam Smith’s work, for which Istvan Hont deserves nothing but praise. My entire trip to New York was made doubly worthwhile by hearing Hont on his paper on ‘Adam Smith’s Political Theory’, which altered at least one of my perspectives on Adam Smith and what he was about, and completed two gaps in my presentation of his Lectures on Jurisprudence (due for fulsome acknowledgement by all scholars who read Istvan Hont).

Incidentally, Istvan Hont saw the task from the Conference as reclaiming Smith’s politics, and his theory of history of law and government, recovering, that is, his missing book on Jurisprudence, wantonly burned on Smith’s instructions days before he died in 1790. I can think of no high priority than Istvan Hont continuing his work in this task, which he so generously gave us a brief glimpse at the Columbia Conference.


Postscript and thanks

It remains to offer my thanks and congratulations to:

The Columbia University Seminar on Studies in Political and Social Thought
The Heyman Centre for the Humanities
The Conference for the Study of Political Thought
The Office of the Provost, Barnard College
The Barnard College Special Events Department

Thanks to David Johnston, organiser of the conference and member of several of the above committees, and to the speakers, moderators, respondents and to those who spoke from the floor, and to those with whom I spoke privately.