Scotland in the Eighteenth Century: Union and Enlightenment

by Allan,David

• ISBN13: 9780582382473
• ISBN10: 0582382475
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Nonspecific Binding
• Copyright: 2001-10-19
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

This is an introduction to Scottish history in the 18th which is completely up-to-date and gives equal emphasis to politics and religion. Once a small and isolated country with an unenviable reputation for poverty and instability, by 1800 Scotland it was emerging as an economic powerhouse, a major colonial power and an internationally acclaimed center of European philosophy, science and literature. This thematic investigation explores the experiences and responses of a people whose world was being fundamentally reconfigured and offers some topical and thought-provoking lessons from a dramatic period when, willingly or with great reluctance, the Scots adapted themselves to rapidly changing circumstances. Starting with the threshold of the Act of Union (1707) and running through to 1800 and the outbreak of the Napoleonic Wars, This book covers the impact of the Enlightenment on Scotland and Scotland's own very significant contribution to this via Adam Smith, David Hume and their circle. Setting social, cultural and economic analyses within a firm political framework, Scotland's internal story is placed in the wider context of Britain, Europe and Empire, and her role and identity within the newly united Britain assessed.

Author Biography

David Allan is Lecturer in Scottish History at the University of St Andrews.

Table of Contents

List of Maps	vii
Acknowledgements	viii
Nation	1	(39)
Convergence and crisis	3	(5)
Treating for Union	8	(6)
The machinery of post-Union politics	14	(6)
Management and patronage	20	(5)
Politics and the people	25	(9)
Patriotism and identity	34	(6)
Belief	40	(41)
A presbyterian Revolution	41	(4)
Controversy and conformity	45	(4)
Jacobitism: ideology and intrigue	49	(7)
The 'Forty-five	56	(7)
Moderatism: toleration and civility	63	(5)
Evangelicalism	68	(4)
Dissent and Popery	72	(4)
Popular superstition	76	(5)
Lives	81	(46)
Population and settlement	81	(4)
National crisis and economic change	85	(5)
Agricultural improvement	90	(6)
Commerce, trade and manufactures	96	(7)
Industrialisation	103	(5)
Social structure and social experience	108	(10)
Social institutions	118	(9)
Ideas	127	(38)
Scottish society and polite culture	128	(5)
`Nature and nature's laws'	133	(4)
'The limits of knowing	137	(5)
`From savage to Scotchman'	142	(8)
Sense and sentiment	150	(6)
In the mind's eye	156	(9)
Empire	165	(21)
Migrants, mercenaries and the will to empire	165	(3)
North America and settlement	168	(9)
India and the East	177	(7)
An imperial Union	184	(2)
Endings	186	(6)
Bibliographical Essay	192	(13)
Index	205