How the Scots Invented the Modern World

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their reliance on a loyal circle of uncles and aunts, nephews and sons-in-law, to pool capital and lay off risk. 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. But Smith’s bold insight was to realize that it was the genius of capitalism to carry both of these characteristics, the pursuit of self-interest and the need for cooperation, to their highest pitch. A rapid succession of Scottish inventors, engineers, doctors, and scientists proved their point to the rest of the world. The Scots who came to the United States in the nineteenth century reveal once again why the Scottish diaspora was so different from other mass immigrations in history.

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. International products have separate terms, are sold from abroad and may differ from local products, including fit, age ratings, and language of product, labeling or instructions.

His early years as a Protestant firebrand had been spent in exile, imprisonment, and even penal servitude chained to a rowing bench in the king's galleys. Buchanan came from Stirlingshire in central Scotland, at a time when it was still much like the Highlands in its culture and character -- in fact, Buchanan grew up speaking both Gaelic and Scots.

They were Whigs (Shaftesbury’s father had even been founder of the Whig Party), not just because they were strong Protestants but because they believed, contrary to Berkeley, that men were born with a desire to be free, in their own lives and in their political arrangements.Not only is this work informative, but it is wonderfully entertaining- exactly what popular history should be. The reviewer for the National Review defended Herman's use of the word "invented", writing that it has "an older meaning: to discover and understand.