Beyond the Enlightenment
Scottish Intellectual Life, 1790-1914
Published on 28. February 2025
Book
Paperback/Softback
288 pages
978-1-4744-9304-8 (ISBN)
Description
This collection explores the richness of Scottish intellectual life, its currents and controversies, from the French Revolution to the First World War, focusing in particular on the legacy of the Scottish Enlightenment. Offering a series of cutting-edge interventions, the contributors cast light on a range of individuals, themes and episodes from the period. Topics range from the role of women as intellectuals to the rise of a science of race, and from freethinking secularism to the debate over George Davie's influential account of 19th-century universities.
Collectively, the chapters represent a pioneering overview of Scottish intellectual life during the long 19th century.
Collectively, the chapters represent a pioneering overview of Scottish intellectual life during the long 19th century.
Reviews / Votes
At last, a bold new map of a period that has hitherto been simply ignored as terra incognita or dismissed as the sorry afterglow of the Scottish Enlightenment. The authors that Fyfe and Kidd have drawn together bring major landmarks on the intellectual horizon of Scotland's long nineteenth century into clear focus for the first time, but also leave abundant signposts for others to continue the task of exploration. -- David N. Livingstone, Queen's University Belfast The history of the intellectual life of the nineteenth century has for too long been squeezed between the glories of the enlightenment and the rhetorical flourishes of the literary renaissance. In this wonderful collection Aileen Fyfe, Colin Kidd and their collaborators have written a rich and stimulating volume that restores the long nineteenth century to its proper place. -- Ewen Cameron, University of Edinburgh [The book's] purpose is to inspire a reconsideration of Scottish intellectual life between the French Revolution and the First World War. That it prompts questions about the organizing principles of intellectual life suggests it does just that. -- Michael Brown, University of Aberdeen * Eighteenth-Century Scotland *More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Edinburgh
United Kingdom
Target group
College/higher education
Dimensions
Height: 139 mm
Width: 216 mm
Thickness: 20 mm
Weight
364 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-4744-9304-8 (9781474493048)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Persons
Aileen Fyfe is Professor of Modern History at the University of St Andrews. She is a social and cultural historian of science and technology, and has written extensively about the communication of science, and the history of academic publishing more broadly. Her books include A History of Scientific Journals: Publishing at the Royal Society, 1665-2015 (UCL Press, 2022), Steam-Powered Knowledge: William Chambers and the Business of Publishing 1820-1860 (Chicago University Press, 2012) and Science and Salvation: Evangelicals and Popular Science Publishing in Victorian Britain (Chicago University Press, 2004). She was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 2022. Colin Kidd is Wardlaw Professor of Modern History at the University of St Andrews. His books include Subverting Scotland's Past (1993), British Identities before Nationalism (1999) and The Forging of Races (2006). He is a Fellow of both the British Academy and the Royal Society of Edinburgh. He was co-editor of the Scottish Historical Review between 1999 and 2004.
Content
Notes on ContributorsAcknowledgements
1. Introduction: Scotland after EnlightenmentAileen Fyfe and Colin Kidd
2. The Enlightenment Legacy and the Democratic IntellectRobert Anderson
3. Dugald Stewart, William Godwin and the Formation of Political EconomyLina Weber
4. The French Revolution and the Transformation of Moderatism:The Silence of the ScribesJohn S. Warren
5. James Mackintosh: The Science of Politics after the French RevolutionRichard Whatmore
6. Scotland's Freethinking Societies: Debating Natural Theology, 1820-c.1843Felicity Loughlin
7. Christian Isobel Johnstone: Radical Journalism and the Ambiguous Legacy of the Scottish EnlightenmentJane Rendall
8. Robert Mudie: Pioneer Naturalist and Crusading ReformerEva-Charlotta Mebius
9. Theories of Universal Degeneration in Post-Enlightenment ScotlandBill Jenkins
10. Robert Knox: The Embittered Scottish Anatomist and his Controversial Race Science in Mid-Nineteenth-Century BritainEfram Sera-Shriar
11. Thomas Carlyle and the Scottish Enlightenment Concept of SympathyJoanna Malecka
12. Covenanting and Enlightenment in Nineteenth-Century Reformed Presbyterian Political TheoryValerie Wallace
13. Andrew Lang and the Cosmopolitan ConditionCatriona M.M. Macdonald
14. Criticism and Freethought, 1880-1914Colin Kidd
15. Epilogue: The Afterlife of the Enlightenment in Scottish CriticismGerard Carruthers
Index
1. Introduction: Scotland after EnlightenmentAileen Fyfe and Colin Kidd
2. The Enlightenment Legacy and the Democratic IntellectRobert Anderson
3. Dugald Stewart, William Godwin and the Formation of Political EconomyLina Weber
4. The French Revolution and the Transformation of Moderatism:The Silence of the ScribesJohn S. Warren
5. James Mackintosh: The Science of Politics after the French RevolutionRichard Whatmore
6. Scotland's Freethinking Societies: Debating Natural Theology, 1820-c.1843Felicity Loughlin
7. Christian Isobel Johnstone: Radical Journalism and the Ambiguous Legacy of the Scottish EnlightenmentJane Rendall
8. Robert Mudie: Pioneer Naturalist and Crusading ReformerEva-Charlotta Mebius
9. Theories of Universal Degeneration in Post-Enlightenment ScotlandBill Jenkins
10. Robert Knox: The Embittered Scottish Anatomist and his Controversial Race Science in Mid-Nineteenth-Century BritainEfram Sera-Shriar
11. Thomas Carlyle and the Scottish Enlightenment Concept of SympathyJoanna Malecka
12. Covenanting and Enlightenment in Nineteenth-Century Reformed Presbyterian Political TheoryValerie Wallace
13. Andrew Lang and the Cosmopolitan ConditionCatriona M.M. Macdonald
14. Criticism and Freethought, 1880-1914Colin Kidd
15. Epilogue: The Afterlife of the Enlightenment in Scottish CriticismGerard Carruthers
Index