The author went to great lengths to cover all Scots with a mantle of glory while choosing to hide any negative aspects to their their historical contributions. Herman (born 1956) is an American popular historian, currently serving as a senior fellow at Hudson Institute.

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

Paterson later tried (unsuccessfully) to create an independent Scottish Empire with a grand navy to rival the English. The author explores the reasons behind the expansive exodus of the Scots from the 17th-19th Centuries that brought their intimate relationship in politics, education and Christianity with them to the other reaches of the World.

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. If indeed true, then perhaps when one says that Greece and Rome are the cradles of European civilisation it could also be stated that Scotland is the cradle of modern civilisation. 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. The Scots from Scotland tended to side with Britain and eventually moved to Canada after the war finished. In rightly praising the Scots for their remarkable achievements, he wants to make them responsible for everything.

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

Most people will point to the technology – television, telephones, macadamised road surfaces, pneumatic tyres, the bicycle, penicillin, Buckfast. There existed in Scotland a clergy who believed that a moral and religious foundation was required for, and compatible with, a free and open sophisticated culture, which moderated hardline conservatives. In this section, he notes that some of the most influential sources consulted included the works of Scottish historians Bruce Lenman, John Prebble, Thomas Devine, and Duncan Bruce, amongst others. The book lives up to the subtitle "created out world and everything in it" though towards the end I felt the author might be overreaching to prove his point. When the local Brahmin priests protested that this was interfering with an important national custom, Napier replied, “My nation also has a custom.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. As with many books of this type though, the author overstates his case, promoting Scotland's influence to the exclusion of everyone else. Smith, in his monumental Wealth of Nations, advocated liberty in the sphere of commerce and the global economy. Finally, The Scots have always been quick to see and exploit good commercial opportunities and, eventually, those opportunities after the 1707 Act of Union were plentiful. The Scottish Enlightenment was more practical and aligned with common sense than was the Enlightenment of the French philosophes.

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

Scots' contribution to modern society is illustrated with biographies of Scots like Dugald Stewart, John Witherspoon, John McAdam, Thomas Telford, and John Pringle, among others. The defeat of the 1745 Jacobite rising decimated the antiquated social structure based around clans lorded over by chieftains. The Scotch-Irish tended to be evangelical Presbyterians who were key figures in America's War for Independence. Herman generally employs the Great Man perspective in his work, which is 19th-century historical methodology attributing human events and their outcomes to the singular efforts of great men that has been refined and qualified by such modern thinkers as Sidney Hook. 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.He also recognises the crucial importance of education, pinpointing Scotland as ‘Europe's first modern literate society’ – and this, in turn, is referred back to John Knox's insane but thorough religious reformation. A well-written and complete history that connects both the history, the minds, the movers and shakers, and the conflicts in Scotland from the 1600s to the 1900s with references to earlier times included for perspective. 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.