Scotland and America in the Age of the Enlightenment

In the standard accounts of the American Enlightenment, Scottish influences on American culture are often recognized but usually limited to the effects of Scottish Common Sense Philosophy from the 1790s onwards. At the same time, many writers on the Scottish Enlightenment give little attention to America's influence on Scottish thought, and scholarship on both Enlightenments generally neglects religion, music, architecture, and other important areas of culture. This book adopts a multidisciplinary approach to the rich and varied Scottish-American cultural relations in the eighteenth century.

The essays focus on three broad topics: John Witherspoon as a bridge between evangelical religion and the Enlightenment during the era of the American Revolution; the influences of American affairs on Scottish thinkers, such as David Hume, Adam Smith, William Robertson and aristocratic "country" Whigs, and of Scottish thought and rhetoric on the American Founding Fathers; and the Scottish component in the culture of late eighteenth-century Philadelphia, including philosophy and literature, medical education, music, and architecture.