This book covers about 5 centuries of Scottish history. I was most interested in the description of education in Scotland. I was unaware that Scotland provided universal education for children long before Britain did. I would argue that this is what led to the flourishing of creativity and invention. I would critique the author is this respect as readers could be left with the idea the Scots are superior as a "race" or ethnic group, rather than considering the factors that enabled people of this nation to achieve their potential. At the same time, as critically important as the availability of education, including universities to virtually everyone, there seem to be some cultural values, such as perseverance and a strong work ethic, that came together to allow this flourishing of genius. In science and industry Herman states that James Watt's steam engine "gave capitalism its modern face, which has persisted down to today". [6] It permitted business to choose its location, like in cities close to inexpensive labor, and it was Scots who rectified negative impacts industry had, i.e. the public health movement. Scots' contribution to modern society is illustrated with biographies of Scots like Dugald Stewart, John Witherspoon, John McAdam, Thomas Telford, and John Pringle, among others. Critics found the book well-written [1] and scholarly but with an over-reaching thesis. [15] [20] [21] The reviewer for the National Review defended Herman's use of the word "invented", writing that it has "an older meaning: to discover and understand. The [Scots] did not, like a number of their French counterparts, seek to construct a new world ... they instead tried to understand certain traditions and institutions that had spontaneously arisen in the course of man's work, but that were still misunderstood even by many intelligent observers." [22] In The Scotsman, reviewer George Kerevan wrote that Herman may have successfully proven his thesis but does not satisfactorily account for "why Scotland?" [23] I am a Scotsman,” Sir Walter Scott famously wrote, “therefore I had to fight my way into the world.” So did any number of his compatriots over a period of just a few centuries, leaving their native country and traveling to every continent, carving out livelihoods and bringing ideas of freedom, self-reliance, moral discipline, and technological mastery with them, among other key assumptions of what historian Arthur Herman calls the “Scottish mentality.”

How the Scots Invented the Modern World - Arthur Herman How the Scots Invented the Modern World - Arthur Herman

Flesh out the achievements of the great and small with ample and interesting personal anecdotes, viewpoints, quotes and failures -- all supported by thorough research. To Rule the Waves: How the British Navy Shaped the Modern World, HarperCollins, 2004 ISBN 978-0060534240. I love Scotland. Along with England it is the only overseas country I've toured. Perhaps my love was born when reading Robert Louis Stevenson, George Macdonald, Sir Walter Scott, John Buchan, and O. Douglas. Or listening to Alistair Begg and David Tennant. That said, I have never been able to gin up motivation to learn much —beyond the names David Hume and Adam Smith—regarding the Scottish Enlightenment. Herman generally employs the Great Man perspective in his work, which is 19th-century historical methodology attributing human events and their outcomes to the singular efforts of great men that has been refined and qualified by such modern thinkers as Sidney Hook. The rest of the first section of the book is taken up with a wide-ranging history of eighteenth century Scotland. Herman discusses the reasons behind the Jacobite rebellions, showing that the divide was much more complex than the simplistic picture of Scotland v England, so beloved of nationalists and film-makers alike. He discusses the clan culture of the Highlands in some depth, stripping away much of the romanticism that has built up over it in the intervening years. He shows how Lowland Scotland, what we would now think of as the Central Belt, was much more in tune with its English partners, particularly as the two main cities of Glasgow and Edinburgh began to reap major economic benefits from access to the Empire. Throughout these chapters, he continues to show how Enlightenment thinking was developing via such huge figures as Hume and Smith, and influencing not just Scottish society, but attracting students from the UK and Europe to study at Scottish universities.A lively intellectual life in the burgeoning cities of the Scottish lowlands put Scotland at the forefront of the 18 th century enlightenment. The Scottish Enlightenment was more practical and aligned with common sense than was the Enlightenment of the French philosophes. David Hume and Adam Smith are just two of the significant Scottish thinkers of this era. The works of Hume and of Smith (e.g. The Wealth of Nations) are still required reading today in the fields of philosophy and of economics. I get minor thrills when my current books intersect. In Ulysses S. Grant's memoirs, General Winfield Scott gets a lot of coverage. How the Scots informed me that Scott's grandfather fought at Culloden, a pivotal moment for the Scottish Highlanders. I just finished Peter Stark's Astoria, in which Scottish trappers play a key part in the failed experiment to settle the Pacific Northwest.

How the Scots Invented the Modern World - Wikipedia

The defeat of the 1745 Jacobite rising decimated the antiquated social structure based around clans lorded over by chieftains. This liberalized the Scottish way of life by allowing citizens to own land and keep the profits instead of giving all profits to the chieftains who owned all the land. Their literate foundation allowed the Scots to become economically literate and take advantage of trade. Edinburgh and Glasgow became epicenters of intellectual thought. There existed in Scotland a clergy who believed that a moral and religious foundation was required for, and compatible with, a free and open sophisticated culture, which moderated hardline conservatives. Herman presents biographies of Francis Hutcheson, Henry Home (Lord Kames), Robert Adam, Adam Smith, and others to illustrate the Scottish development. He makes his case well. Since the Enlightenment, which took a distinctive flavor in Scotland as opposed to the continental version, Scots have led or participated in much of the good and evil perpetuated by English-speaking peoples on the rest of the world, even when the language they spoke was hardly recognizable as English. They led in thought, word, and deed the development of western culture and spread it . . . pretty much everywhere. A well-written and complete history that connects both the history, the minds, the movers and shakers, and the conflicts in Scotland from the 1600s to the 1900s with references to earlier times included for perspective. Herman's father Arthur L. Herman, a scholar of Sanskrit, was a professor of philosophy at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point. I learned things that I am a bit embarrassed that I didn't know--that Sir Walter Scott was the father of the historical novel. I was stunned to read the names of famous industrial titans like Carnegie and learn they were Scots.Kerevan, George (February 2, 2002). "How the Scots invented modernity". The Scotsman. Edinburgh. p.4. Arthur L. Herman. The Saumur assembly 1611: Huguenot political belief and action in the age of Marie de Medici [ permanent dead link]. Johns Hopkins University, Dissertation by Arthur L. Herman, 1984. But with that small reservation aside, I would heartily recommend this book to anyone who wants a clearer understanding of the history of this period, both as it affected Scotland and the wider world. And, in this year of the Scottish Independence referendum, a useful reminder of the reasons behind the Union and the early economic benefits of it, providing food for thought for either camp as to whether those reasons and benefits are still relevant today. Arthur L. Herman (born 1956) is an American popular historian. He currently serves as a senior fellow at Hudson Institute. [1] Biography [ edit ] In 2008, he added to his body of work Gandhi and Churchill: The Epic Rivalry that Destroyed an Empire and Forged Our Age, a finalist for the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction. [5]

How the Scots Invented the Modern World: The True Story…

Most Scottish people are familiar with the poem, Wha's Like Us, which lists many Scottish inventions and innovations. Link here : http://www.aboutaberdeen.com/whaslike... Consider the title of this book: How the Scots Invented the Modern World: The True Story of How Western Europe's Poorest Nation Created Our World & Everything in It. (The word "true" is something of a give away.) How the Scots Invented the Modern Worldreveals 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. Arthur L. Herman. Confederate Statues Honor Timeless Virtues — Let Them Stay, National Review, August 19, 2017. However, I felt that the book fell apart towards the end. It felt less like a great historical presentment and more like a shoddy list made for bragging rights. As the book progresses through time, so do the characters involved in the stories, eventually reaching a more modern time when the people discussed were not nearly as interesting as in the early portions of the book. It felt as if the author became tired with describing Scottish history and fell in to a groove of saying, "This guy invented this, and this other guy invented something else."The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the sphere of suffering shared, and in this case extended to the death march itself, there is no spiritual or emotional legacy here to offset any reader reluctance. Secondly, radical and sweeping reforms in Scottish education brought literacy right across the class spectrum. Even lowly crofters and their families were educated and often well-read. University education was similarly founded on rational enquiry which made room for radical thinkers like Adam Smith and David Hume such that a Scottish education became the benchmark of excellence around the world. Tie it all together -- not in boring straight-line fashion -- but with analysis of philosophies, trends and other factors that complete the historical context in high-def living color, a story worth reading because of its intensity.