In 1776, when Adam Smith published The Wealth of Nations, Great Britain was faced with a monumental sovereign debt crisis that would not be seen again until the 21st Century -- when the U.S. finds itself with a rapidly accelerating $12.4 trillion national debt, soon rising to 100 percent of the Gross Domestic Product within a few years. The last chapter of his opus magnum, "Of Public Debts," was dedicated to persuading the British Parliament of the calamity the British Empire was faced with. And, alas, they did not listen.

  Reading through it today, one might easily surmise that Adam Smith, the Scottish economist and Enlightenment political philosopher, was actually a time-traveler who had foreknowledge of the crisis that faces the world today. For, the crisis he describes in exquisite, haunting detail is, nearly verbatim, eerily reminiscent of the calamity that now threatens the economic survival of the modern world -- and threatens to enslave future generations for decades to come.