Rating: 
Summary: How the Scots Invented the Modern World
Review: The Scots here get all the credit, for everything from humanistic philosophy to capitalism to the steam engine to Agent 007. If enough Scots read this paean to their ancestors, Herman (History/George Mason Univ.; Joseph McCarthy, 1999, etc.) may one day have his visage carved into a Scottish Mt. McRushmore. Herman begins in the nasty 17th century and guides us with swift intelligence and admirable command of his sources through some complicated history: the National Covenant (1638), the Stuarts, Cromwell (whose singular virtue, Herman notes, is that he was hated by everyone in the British Isles). Soon we are in the 18th century, and the Act of Union, which, as Herman observes, confounded its critics by propelling the Scottish economy into astonishing prosperity. Herman reminds us of all the great men (yes, mostly men) who were Scots, including Francis Hutcheson (an early opponent of slavery and advocate of women's rights), James Boswell, David Hume, Adam Smith (the first compassionate conservative?), Edward Gibbon . . . well, maybe he doesn't quite qualify, but, says Herman (reaching, reaching), "for all intents and purposes, he was intellectually a Scot." Herman explains the apparent oxymoron "Scotch Irish," displays the Scottish origins of "redneck" and "cracker," and points out that half the signers of the Declaration of Independence were Scots (or of Scottish ancestry). Scots created the modern literary journal (Edinburgh Review), historical fiction (Sir Walter Scott's Waverly), and pavement (John MacAdam's "macadamized" road). Scots also invented modern medical practices, ruled sweetly in the far reaches of the British Empire, peopled Canada and Australia with sturdy stock, and sent medicine and Jesus to Africa in the person of Dr. Livingstone (I presume). Notable Americans like Daniel Boone, Jim Bowie, Sam Houston, and Kit Carson had roots in Scotland, as did Andrew Carnegie, who built railroads, steel mills, and libraries.
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Summary: A Must Read
Review: The Scotland of William Wallace is not the Scotland that Arthur Herman celebrates in "How the Scots Invented the Modern World: The True Story of How Western Europe's Poorest Nation Created Our World and Everything In It." To the contrary, Scotland's triumphant moment came four centuries after Braveheart's death, according to Herman, when Scotland welcomed--not threw off--the English. "In the span of a single generation it would transform Scotland from a Third World country into a modern society and open up a cultural and social revolution," Herman asserts. "Far from finding themselves slaves to the English, as opponents had prophesied, Scots experienced an unprecedented freedom and mobility." While its title intentionally embraces the Scottish tradition of boasting and exaggerating, "How the Scots Invented the Modern World" makes a strong case that the Scots, more than any other people, are responsible for the world after the Enlightenment. What followed unification was not merely a Scottish renaissance, but a revolution in thought that changed the world. Adam Smith, David Hume, Robert Louis Stevenson, James Boswell, Andrew Carnegie, Alexander Graham Bell, Sir Walter Scott, and George Buchanan are among the Scots Herman discusses. Perfecting the steam engine, introducing inoculation to fight smallpox, inventing street lamps, devising the system of time zones, and discovering the simple method to prevent scurvy were all products of the Scottish imagination. "How the Scots Invented the Modern World" tells an untold story with wit and eloquence. This provocative book will gain the interest of Scots and non-Scots alike who are left to wonder how a small group living in the shadow of their southern neighbors had such a positive impact upon the world in which we live.
Rating: 
Summary: Convincing story--too many mistakes
Review: I come at this review as the author of a recent book on the piety of John Witherspoon and a specialist in 18th century Scotland. Herman's book is a sweeping account of the great story of what the small country of Scotland did to help make the modern world. Book is badly need and should be much appreciated. However, Herman is a sloppy historian, sad to say. Items: Page 85, he has the wrong date (1759)for Wm. Robertson's HISTORY OF THE REIGN.... It should be 1769.
Page 161, he tries to explain how a person could travel by coach from Glasgow to Edinburgh, have a visit there, and then return in the space of two days. Yet in the same paragraph he explains that the actual coach trip each way took a day and a half. Page 205, he states that William [sic] Alison was the head of the Old Siders. Wrong. It was Francis Alison, not William.
Page 209, he writes, "Witherspoon published his first words of support for the American cause in 1771. Three years later...he composed his THOUGHTS ON AMERICAN LIBERTY." There is no source cited for the 1771 date, nor for other such assertions that Herman makes throughout his book. I and Witherspoon's biographer (Collins) recognize that Witherspoon's THOUGHTS... offer the first documented evidence of his transformation into an American. Page 318, the new section is numbered III. It should be IV. Number III is on p. 313. Page 340, Herman has Fort Pitt on the Susquehanna River. Wrong. Fort Pitt was at the confluence of the Allegheny and Monongahela Rivers, which flow into the Ohio. These are the errors which I picked up on a first rapid reading of the book. I truly hope there are not others.
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Summary: A Wonderful Tribute to the Scots
Review: I thought this was a marvelously well researched work. Growing up largely in northern Scotland I was not raised with a wide sweeping sense of Scottish history, such as the accompishments of various Scottish descendants in North America and Australia. Mr. Herman has really carved a good track here, in the spirit of Cahill's How the Irish Saved Civilization. Great Sunday afternoon reading.
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Summary: A Book for All Nations
Review: As a Scotsman who has now lived nearly half his life outside of Scotland I thoroughly enjoyed this book. This was enhanced by the prominence in the story of my home town of Edinburgh. I can however recommend the book to people of any nationality as a very interesting read. Before starting it I feared the worst: that the disproportionately large role of the Scots in many aspects of the world's development in the past few hundred years would be put down to something in the air or the porridge. Instead a very strong case is made that much was due to the accidental confluence of human dynamics. Changing attitudes to religion, the opportunities given by the union with England in 1707 and the long time prevalence of education in Scotland even for the poorest, led to a questioning of what motivates people. The answer was that it was essentially self interest, that your life was what you made of it and that was how you should be judged. Everyone therefore started out as good as anyone else. Especially fascinating is the role of Scots and this line of thought in the formation of America, which was founded on a set of beliefs which sound very similar.
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Summary: I wish I were a Scotsman.
Review: A Revelation of Stunning Proportions! Once again I have "warmed myself at fires I did not build." What I found most profound was the bedrock of Scottish Values that poured into the American Dream. I wish I were a Scotsman.
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Summary: Though of Scottish heritage, I suppose I am a clod....
Review: Others have praised the "easy reading" of this book, but I found it quite difficult due to the heavy practice of placing what should be foot notes into the text. Outside of that small criticism, the material was enlightening, quite well researched, and presented in an engaging manner. I question the self serving title, but it served to get me to buy the book. Marketing is King. I found reference to several items I discovered in the National Museum in Glasgow where various papers are posted that were discussed in the pubs and meeting places of gathering philosophers from all over Europe during the 18th century when Glasgow and Edinburgh were "think tanks" of Europe. You would be amazed at the wording of many passages we find in the American Declaraton of Independence and Constitution. It seems plagiarism was popular then as well.
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Summary: Makes me think
Review: I have a Scottish last name and have always been interested in the history of Scotland. This book is easy to read on difficult subjects like Adam Smith. It really made me think about whether Capitalism is the driving force of the world. If people have enough material things do they conform. In the US with lot's of different kinds of people that seems to be the case. It also appears that even the worst off in the US has a TV and is probably better off than the best off in sub-Sahara Africa. I don't want to argue who is happier. I also was interested that Lowland Scots were Presbyterian and English Episcopalian. I loved the reference to English as high-browed. I still see the British as Stogy to the point of their own downfall. My last name is a Highlander name so now I wonder if we came after the 45. Anyway I'm not finished with this yet but really enjoyed it..
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Summary: The Power of the Scottish Enlightenment
Review: The value of this book lies in Herman's description of the origins, development, and practical consequences of the Scottish Enlightenment. Throughout my many years in academia, the French Enlightenment received significantly more attention than did the Scottish Enlightenment. Herman points out that Diderot's Encyclopedia is now a historical relic, whereas the Encyclopedia Britannica is a world-renowned standard. More importantly, Scottish thinkers gave us a functional democracy and an understanding of the system of natural liberty (i.e. market economics). Meanwhile, Rousseau and the French Revolution were the ancestors of the 100 million Marxist murders of the 20th century. Herman persuades me that the Scottish Enlightenment is in a league with Periclean Athens and Renaissance Italy in terms of the extent of originality, scale of the consequences, and the degree of benefit to human well-being. After reading Herman, the French Enlightenment seems largely a matter of self-important blather by comparison. Voltaire is obviously not in the same league as Hume. Scottish Enlightenment thinkers continue to be models of clear, rational thought even today. Superb reasoning powers combined with a practical bent, always rare among intellectuals, resulted in extraordinary impact. I have long been a fan of Joseph Black for his incisive reasoning; I had not known that James Watt was his friend and student, and brought to bear Black's habits of mind to the practical development of steam power. Madison's Federalist X is among the most important of U.S. founding documents; it was great to learn of the extent of Hume's influence on Madison. I had also not known of the direct human transmission of ideas from Adam Smith to Dugald Stewart to the Scottish legislators, journalists, and polemicists who created British classical liberalism in the 19th century. A similar combination of distinctive intellectual and practical traits formed the British empire (which is treated with appropriate appreciation herein). Add in Dr. Samuel Smiles' creation of the "Self-Help" genre, Andrew Carnegie's life, James Mill and John Stuart Mill, and dozens of influential but less well-known theorists, writers, engineers, businessmen, etc. and Herman convinces that specific Scottish intellectual and moral traits also led to the pervasive construction of lesser modern institutions from asphalt to Australian sheep farming. The fact that that a small group of Scottish thinkers in close contact with one another developed the intellectual and practical foundations of modernity is astounding. Moreover, in large measure their efforts were intentional: they were deliberately setting out to understand and improve the world by means of rationality, and succeeded in doing so beyond anyone's wildest fantasies. As with Periclean Athens and Renaissance Italy, it is striking that the Scottish Enlightenment consisted of a brief burst of extraordinary creation followed by a decline into ordinariness. The latter part of the book consequently degenerates into catalogs of Scottish individuals; of interest to those of Scottish ancestry, but not of the same importance as the effects of the Scottish Enlightenment. The real interest of this book lies not in its flattery of Scottish peoples, but in its charting of an amazing cultural meme that spawned many of the most successful and positive aspects of contemporary life. May reason once again prevail.
Rating:
Summary: Readable, well researched history...
Review: As a second generation American with emigrant Scottish grandparents, this book is both extremely readable (I am reminded of Guns, Germs and Steel; a work that easily flowed through hundreds of years of ethno-political development,) and also sufficiently balanced and scholarly. As a resident of South Boston, an Irish American enclave and major source of support for the IRA and NORAID, it is easy to be seduced by anti-English sentiment as someone of Celtic descent. This book elevates Scottish culture and contributions without flogging the anti-English horse. Very important is the explanation of the Darien disaster, subsequent bankruptcy of Scotland, and the economic boom Glasgow and the country as a whole enjoyed after unifying with the mercantile power that was England. A great read for anyone, and particularly great for descendants of the Caledonian diaspora.
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