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Reason

Amanda France

Tracking a Unicorn in Adam Smith's Edinburgh

Adam Smith Edinburgh Alan Wilson David Hume DPA Old Town

This is part of Reason's 2025 summer travel issue. Click here to read the rest of the issue.

The Heart of Midlothian; Joaquin Ossorio-Castillo/Alamy. St Giles' Cathedral; Nilfanion/Wikimedia. Adam Smith Statue; Stefan Schäfer/ Lich/Wikimedia. Canongate Kirkyard; dpa picture alliance/Alamy. Dunbars Close Garden; Craig Leggat/Alamy. Adam Smith's Panmure House; Alan Wilson/Alamy

Set among crags, hills, and Gothic spires, Edinburgh—also known as "Auld Reekie" or "Old Smokey"—was an unlikely center of progress in the 18th century: congested and smelly, with a sordid underground at the edge of an empire. Yet it was there that Adam Smith first published his Theory of Moral Sentiments in 1759.

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