book how the scots invented the modern world

I said it was an eternal mystery one of the problems with this book is that the Scottish Enlightenment remains a bit of a mystery even after finishing it. For two hundred years, from the start of the eighteenth century to the end of the nineteenth, Scotland churned out ideas at a ridiculous pace: David Hume remade empiricist philosophy, Adam Smith invented economics, Francis Hutcheson invented modern liberalism, James Hutton invented modern geology, Walter Scott invented modern fiction…. But even more important were the new concepts and attitudes that made it all possible. Most people will point to the technology – television, telephones, macadamised road surfaces, pneumatic tyres, the bicycle, penicillin, Buckfast. It's one of the eternal mysteries why so much of the modern world seems to have come out of this remote, rainy corner on the edge of Europe. Admittedly at the time this was somewhat disingenuous, since Nebraska even then had dozens of channels whereas Scotland had four (all of which were regularly interrupted by the fateful words ‘…except for viewers in Scotland’), but still, the point was made. How the Scots Invented the Modern World reveals how Scottish genius for creating the basic ideas and institutions of modern life stamped the lives of a series of remarkable historical figures, from James Watt and Adam Smith to Andrew Carnegie and Arthur Conan Doyle, and how Scottish heroes continue to inspire our contemporary culture, from William “Braveheart” Wallace to James Bond.Īnd no one who takes this incredible historical trek will ever view the Scots-or the modern West-in the same way again.ĭuring a school exchange to McCook, Nebraska, in the early 90s, my wife was asked whether they had television in Scotland. Constitution and how thousands of Scottish immigrants left their homes to create the American frontier, the Australian outback, and the British Empire in India and Hong Kong. Here is the untold story of how John Knox and the Church of Scotland laid the foundation for our modern idea of democracy how the Scottish Enlightenment helped to inspire both the American Revolution and the U.S. Herman has charted a fascinating journey across the centuries of Scottish history. As historian and author Arthur Herman reveals, in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries Scotland made crucial contributions to science, philosophy, literature, education, medicine, commerce, and politics-contributions that have formed and nurtured the modern West ever since. Who formed the first literate society? Who invented our modern ideas of democracy and free market capitalism? The Scots. An exciting account of the origins of the modern world

Book how the scots invented the modern world