Publisher, Tantor Media (February 2007)

NOTE: Tantor RETAIL COMPACT DISC EDITIONS are packaged in attractive, durable plastic albums with a ring binder and individual CD sleeves with full-color cover artwork.

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Michael Prichard has a good feel for O'Rourke's dry sense of humor. His narration is suitably unadorned, though he mixes in just enough accents and voicings to make sure the listener doesn't take it all too seriously. ---AudioFile Magazine

"Highly accessible, often hilarious.... [Listeners] well versed and not so well versed in economic theory will enjoy this delightful look at Smith's famous and famously dense work." ---Booklist

Recognized almost instantly upon its publication in 1776 as the fundamental work of economics, The Wealth of Nations was also recognized as really long: the original edition totaled over 900 pages in two volumes---including the blockbuster 67-page "digression concerning the variations in the value of silver during the course of the last four centuries," which, according to P.J. O'Rourke, "to those uninterested in the historiography of currency supply, is like reading Modern Maturity in Urdu." Although daunting, Smith's tome is still essential to understanding such current hot topics as outsourcing, trade imbalances, and Angelina Jolie. In this hilarious, approachable, and insightful examination of Smith and his groundbreaking work, O'Rourke puts his trademark wit to good use and shows us why Smith is still relevant, why what seems obvious now was once revolutionary, and why the pursuit of self-interest is so important.

About the Author: P.J. O'Rourke is the bestselling author of ten books, including The CEO of the Sofa, Eat the Rich, Parliament of Whores, and All the Trouble in the World. The former editor in chief of National Lampoon magazine, O'Rourke now writes for Rolling Stone and the Atlantic Monthly. He lives in New Hampshire and Washington, D.C.

About the Performer: Michael Prichard has played several thousand characters during his career. While he has been seen performing over 100 of them in theater and film, Michael is primarily heard, having recorded over 450 full-length books. During his career as a one-man repertory company, he has recorded many series with running characters---including the complete Travis McGee adventures by John D. MacDonald, the complete Nero Wolfe mysteries by Rex Stout, the Dirk Pitt adventures by Clive Cussler, and more than a dozen other series by masters of suspense ranging from Georges Simenon and Dashiell Hammett to Robert B. Parker and Tom Clancy---as well as series by such greats as Mark Twain, Herman Wouk, John Cheever, and John Updike. He has won AudioFile Earphones Awards for three of his nonfiction recordings, and SmartMoney magazine named him one of the Top Ten Golden Voices, an asset he developed as a boy singing at the wheel of a tractor on his family's farm. Jesuits taught him Latin, Greek, and French, and he earned his M.F.A. in theater from the University of Southern California. In addition to narrating, he works at the Pasadena Playhouse.