Reading the Scottish Enlightenment

Download or read book Reading the Scottish Enlightenment written by Mark Towsey and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2010-09-24 with total page 380 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It has become commonplace in recent decades for scholars to identify in the books of the Scottish Enlightenment the intellectual origins of the modern world, but little attention has yet been paid to its impact on contemporary readers. Drawing on a range of innovatory methodologies associated with the burgeoning interdisciplinary field of the history of reading, this book explores the reception of books by David Hume, Adam Smith, William Robertson and Thomas Reid (amongst many others), assessing their impact on the lives, beliefs and habits of mind of readers across the social scale. In the process, the book offers a fascinating new perspective on the fundamental importance of personal reading experiences to the social history of the Enlightenment.