  Meeting
Report
January 3, 2003
Wayne Luney
Book Review and Discussion:
How the Scots Invented the Modern World
The focus of the meeting was a new book by Arthur Herman, How the
Scots Invented the Modern World: The True Story of How Western Europe’s
Poorest Nation Created our World and Everything in it.
Mr. Herman’s thesis is that the larger market provided by the Act of
Union between England and Scotland in the early 18th century, the high
value Scots gave to literacy, and the relative freedom of inquiry compared
with earlier times contributed to the Scottish renaissance of the late
18th and early 19th centuries. This in turn gave us the ideas of Adam
Smith and David Hume and the inventions of James Watt. And that was only
the tip of the iceberg. Much of what makes the modern world had its
origins at that time and place.
Report prepared by Wayne
Luney, HAGSA Recorder
Mr. Herman's book is available from or through
Amazon.com for anything
from $7.95 (paperback) to $22.71 (hardcover). (HAGSA receives no
compensation for linking to Amazon.com.)
 Click
below to return to the list of 2003 Meetings or to go to the previous or
next meeting report.
|