How the Scots Invented the Modern World

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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 WORLD | Kirkus Reviews HOW THE SCOTS INVENTED THE MODERN WORLD | Kirkus Reviews

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... Leicester, Graham (April 15, 2002). "Scotland can still help shape new world". The Scotsman. Edinburgh. p.17. 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] Herman wrote the book for an American audience which may not have been very familiar with Scottish history. [7] He provides a historical overview and short biographies of the most prominent Scots. The historical approach uses the Great Man Theory, that a historical narrative can be told through the lives of a few prominent figures. [1] Regarding this approach Michael Lynch of The Globe and Mail wrote, the biographies "reveal subtle but important links between these figures and their ideas, which Herman seeks to characterize, with some success, as a coherent body of distinctively 'Scottish' thought." [8]

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Victorian historian John Anthony Froude once proclaimed, “No people so few in number have scored so deep a mark in the world’s history as the Scots have done.” And no one who has taken this incredible historical trek, from the Highland glens and the factories and slums of Glasgow to the California Gold Rush and the search for the source of the Nile, will ever view Scotland and the Scots—or the modern West—in the same way again. For this is a story not just about Scotland: it is an exciting account of the origins of the modern world and its consequences.

How the Scots Invented the Modern World - Wikipedia

Historian Arthur Herman has written a comprehensive and well-detailed account of the many ways that notable Scots have had a special influence on world events. Not only is there a ton of information here, but it's written with a skilled and fascinating narrative that holds the reader's attention and interest. In many places, its a work of history that reads like a novel. So many historical fields are covered -- politics, medicine, philosophy, science, and literature, to name a few. 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] The history of religion in Scotland is central. John Knox, the Scottish Presbytarian church, the conflicts with Catholics supporters of the Jacobite cause, and the Anglican church are described in good detail. There are many many references to Ulster, and Ulster Scots, and the history of the development of these churches in Scotland are essential for understanding the religious landscape of modern Ulster. Herman, Arthur (2001). How the Scots Invented the Modern World. Three Rivers Press. ISBN 9780609809990.

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In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Herman taught at Sewanee: The University of the South, George Mason University, Georgetown and The Catholic University of America. He was the founder and coordinator of the Western Heritage Program in the Smithsonian's Campus on the Mall lecture series. [3] [4] A key event which helped launch this flowering was an economic one. The 1690’s were an unusually cold decade, leading to famine and poverty in the more northern European countries like Scotland. Scottish trade and industry were constricted by the policies of England, their more powerful neighbor to the south. Other nations of Western Europe in the 1600’s had colonies in the Americas, which seemed to be a source of national wealth and influence. Scotland tried to found her own colony, called Darien, on the coast of the Isthmus of Panama. A huge fraction of the wealth of Scotland was invested in this venture. It failed, for various reasons, which was an economic disaster for the country. According to Herman, the United States of America probably wouldn't exist without the Scots, and Ulster Scots ("Scotch Irish"). The Constitution, structure of the federal government, and more, he seems to claim, were primarily the creations of either Scottish immigrants or descendants. At times, he seems to go overboard with this idea. However, when I realized at the time, Europeans living in the 13 colonies were all either British, Scottish, German with a few Irish (mostly Ulster Scots so he would consider them Scots of a sort), it isn't surprising that Scots played a big role. The French were in Canada and Louisiana, the Spanish and Portuguese were further south, and after the Vikings, Scandinavians stayed put for a few centuries, as did the Italians (Romans of old) and Greeks.

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

Welsh, Irvine (January 19, 2002). "The flowers of Scotland". The Guardian. London. p.E5 . Retrieved September 1, 2009. It was both exciting and fulfilling to read the history that led up to the Battle of Culloden and beyond, to meet the historical figures and read the family names from her books in the context of the history she drew on. Thirdly, the melting-pot effect: put lots of clever, imaginative people into the same cramped space (18th century Edinburgh) with lots of claret and oysters and their ideas will cross-pollinate and bring forth a great flourishing of creativity.Firstly, there was a large injection of rationalism into religious thinking by key prominant players. Equality of all before god, working to god's glory, and recognising god in the observable facts of nature were principles carried into the heart of Scottish society. At the time of publication, the author was the coordinator of the Western Civilization Program at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC. [1] The book grew out of a class topic at the Smithsonian regarding intellectual life in Edinburgh in the 18th century. [2] Herman was impressed by the fact that so many prominent individuals who had a significant impact on modernity had come from such a specific geographic location and time-frame. [2] The second part, Diaspora, focuses on the impacts of Scots on events, the world, and industries. Most Scots immigrants in the American colonies sympathized with the British during the American Revolutionary War but those who did fight in the militias were the most capable because many were the same refugee families from the 1745 Jacobite rising. Herman claims that the Scottish School of Common Sense influenced much of the American declaration of independence and constitution. [4] 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.” 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.