Mario Vargas Llosa talks about Adam Smith

I enjoy books where one famous intellectual gives their interpretation of another’s insights. Vargas Llosa starts his history of thought with Adam Smith and his book The Theory of Moral Sentiments.

Human beings get to know each other through imagination, and a natural sense of sympathy toward one’s neighbor is what draws one individual to another, something that would never occur if human actions were exclusively governed by reason. This feeling of sympathy, and imagination, brings strangers together and establishes between them a link that breaks down mistrust and creates reciprocal bonds. The vision of man and society that permeates this book is positive and optimistic, for Adam Smith believes that, despite all the horrors that are committed, goodness-—that is, moral sentiments— prevail over evil.