Books : How the Scots Invented the Modern World: The True Story of How Western Europe's Poorest Nation Created Our World & Everything in It
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Type of bind: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 941.1
EAN num: 9780609809990
ISBN number: 0609809997
Label: Three Rivers Press
Manufacturer: Three Rivers Press
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 480
Printing Date: September 24, 2002
Publishing house: Three Rivers Press
Release Date: September 24, 2002
Sale Popularity Level: 21114
Studio: Three Rivers Press
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Who formed the very first modern nation?
Who created the very first literate society?
Who invented our modern ideas of democracy and free market capitalism?
The Scots.
Mention of Scotland and the Scots usually conjures up images of kilts, bagpipes, Scotch whisky, and golf. But as historian and author Arthur Herman demonstrates, in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries Scotland earned the respect of the rest of the world for its crucial contributions to science, philosophy, literature, education, medicine, commerce, and politics—contributions that have formed and nurtured the modern West ever since.
Arthur Herman has charted a fascinating journey across the centuries of Scottish history. He lucidly summarizes the ideas, discoveries, and achievements that made this small country facing on the North Atlantic an inspiration and driving force in world history. 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. 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.
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.
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.
“The point of this book is that being Scottish turns out to be more than just a matter of nationality or place of origin or clan or even culture. It is also a state of mind, a way of viewing the world and our place in it. . . . This is the story of how the Scots created the basic idea of modernity. It will show how that idea transformed their own culture and society in the eighteenth century, and how they carried it with them wherever they went. Obviously, the Scots did not do everything by themselves: other nations—Germans, French, English, Italians, Russians, and many others—have their place in the making of the modern world. But it is the Scots more than anyone else who have created the lens through which we see the final product. When we gaze out on a contemporary world shaped by technology, capitalism, and modern democracy, and struggle to find our place as individuals in it, we are in effect viewing the world as the Scots did. . . . The story of Scotland in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries is one of hard-earned triumph and heart-rending tragedy, spilled blood and ruined lives, as well as of great achievement.”
—FROM THE PREFACE
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'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.'
It is only natural, Herman suggests, that a country that once ranked among Europe's poorest, if most literate, would prize the ideal of progress, measured 'by how far we have come from where we once were.' Forged in the Scottish Enlightenment, that ideal would inform the political theories of Francis Hutcheson, Adam Smith, and David Hume, and other Scottish thinkers who viewed 'man as a product of history,' and whose collective enterprise involved 'nothing less than a massive reordering of human knowledge' (yielding, among other things, the Encyclopaedia Britannica, very first published in Edinburgh in 1768, and the Declaration of Independence, published in Philadelphia just a few years later). On a more immediately practical front, but no less bound to that notion of progress, Scotland also fielded inventors, warriors, administrators, and diplomats such as Alexander Graham Bell, Andrew Carnegie, Simon MacTavish, and Charles James Napier, who created empires and great fortunes, extending Scotland's reach into every corner of the world.
Herman examines the lives and work of these and many more eminent Scots, capably defending his thesis and arguing, with both skill and good cheer, that the Scots 'have by and large made the world a better place rather than a worse place.' --Gregory McNamee
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Rated by buyers -
The "exaggerated" title of the book made me wonder if the author was aiming for a light-hearted tone, but he's serious! Herman backs up his claim with plenty of historical and anecdotal evidence, leaving the reader with an unabashed sense of respect and appreciation for the nation of Scotland and its people.
The book is particularly strong in explaining how influential the Scots were in the Enlightenment and Industrial eras, and how much American society was initially shaped by the Scots.
The book is written in a slightly dry, humorless, and scholarly manner, though, which might make this a cumbersome read for someone with no initial interest in the subject matter. However, history buffs will find this a fascinating and thought-provoking book!
Rated by buyers 
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Scottish history has always been vague to me, but Herman mixes history, biography, philosophy and much more into a great read. I was amazed at how events in the 1700s affect events today...like gun control. He overstates his case, but any professor that doesn't exude enthusiasm for his subject would be considered dull these days.
Rated by buyers -
You may see how the ecclesiastical and civil trials of Scotland generated the people and their methods for all fields of endeavor in Western Society.
Rated by buyers -
Herman's How the Scots Invented the Modern World is enjoyable and emphasizes the great Enlightenment vision that tried to understand human nature.
This is not a review, however, but a comment on two problems with the text that were not "fixed" in the paperback edition.
1) Harriet Martineau was not the wife of John Stuart Mill; his wife was also named Harriet but Martineau was a minor but important writer on her own.
2) Jonathan Edwards was preceded by Aaron Burr, Sr. as president of Harvard, not followed by him. Indeed, the chaos in the family from the deaths of his parents and of his gtandfather as well were a part of the very first years of the more famous Aaron Burr's life.
I'm not a historian; I can see how these could easily happen. Nonetheless, much as I am enjoying the book, slips like these (kept into later editions) indicate Herman would profit from more fact-checking and a sharper editor.
Rated by buyers -
This is a detailed look at the role the Scots have played in the developement of the modern world in the 18th and 19th Centuries from the highlands of their own country to the distant corners of the New World and Asia.
The title's statement about how they 'Created Our World & Everything In It' led me to figure that this book would be strongly biased, but I bought it anyway and found that it is not; the author was deliberately exaggerating and presents a relatively balanced view of Scottish history. There are few strong anti-English sentiments in this book, and none of the 'Braveheart'-style stereotype that this period in Scottish history (the Jacobite Rebellions) is prone to attracting. More than anything it is about the Scottish Enlightenment, the cultural centers that arose at Edinburgh and especially Glasglow following the '45, and the individual Scots that strongly influenced modern politics, finances, religion, and philosophy.
Overall, I liked this book (though it was a tad bit dry) and found it much more fair and balanced than most other titles on this topic.
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