- Paperback: 392 pages
- Publisher: Edinburgh University Press (7 April 1999)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0748612742
- ISBN-13: 978-0748612741
- Product Dimensions: 19.7 x 12 x 1.9 cm
- Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,196,114 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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One of the seminal books in the move towards a new Scottish enlightenment and the development, from the ground up, of a live, expansive culture. One of the seminal books in the move towards a new Scottish enlightenment and the development, from the ground up, of a live, expansive culture.
Product Description
Scotland has always had a distinctive approach to higher education. From the inauguration of its first universities, the accent has been on first principles. This unified the approach to knowledge - even of mathematics and science - through a broad, philosophical interpretation. This generalist tradition, contrasting with the specialism of the two English universities, Oxford and Cambridge, stood Scotland in good stead. It characterised its intellectual life, even into the nineteenth century, when economic, social and political pressures enforced an increasing conformity to English models. George Davie's account of the history of these movements, and of the great personalities involved, has proved seminal in restoring to Scotland a sense of cultural identity. Originally published in 1961, The Democratic Intellect has had a marked -and acknowledged - influence on the thinking of those in power in higher education, and indeed upon the subsequent planning of several of the new universities, not only in Scotland. Professor David Daiches called it "timely and provocative". So it remains today.
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AT the Union of 1707, the Scots virtually gave up their political and economic independence, but retained the right to follow their national usage in religion, law and education. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
AT the Union of 1707, the Scots virtually gave up their political and economic independence, but retained the right to follow their national usage in religion, law and education. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This is a classic study of Scottish high culture seen through the Universities of the 19th century that originally appeared in 1961. In its day it was responsible for creating a generation of cultural nationalists united around a civic project that led to the restoration of the Scottish Parliament in 1999.
Davie charts a narrative of decline of a predominantly Presbyterian culture that had distinctive approaches to mathematics and science, to literature and to philosophy drawing on Continental traditions that it held in tension with more pragmatic influences from England in the context of Empire. Through three successive Westminster Parliament University Commissions, the distinctness and integrity of this 'democratic intellect' was worn and chipped away. Funding was refused for cultural innovations and thus living traditions ossified.
So we are told at any rate and so many of us believed for many a year. There is certainly a goldmine of facts and history here much of which you will not find in our populist 'social histories' that largely ignore the life of the mind. In some ways, Davie is a Scottish equivalent of Maurice Cowling though he ranges more widely. In retrospect, I feel that Davie endorses an overly conservative approach to Scottish institutions (albeit a pro-Home Rule conservatism) that needs to be revised in the light of the practicalities of power, as does his opposition to a caricatured Anglican culture. All the same, no-one will understand much about modern Scotland or the Home Rule movement without reading this book and its successor Crisis of the Democratic Intellect (1986).
Davie charts a narrative of decline of a predominantly Presbyterian culture that had distinctive approaches to mathematics and science, to literature and to philosophy drawing on Continental traditions that it held in tension with more pragmatic influences from England in the context of Empire. Through three successive Westminster Parliament University Commissions, the distinctness and integrity of this 'democratic intellect' was worn and chipped away. Funding was refused for cultural innovations and thus living traditions ossified.
So we are told at any rate and so many of us believed for many a year. There is certainly a goldmine of facts and history here much of which you will not find in our populist 'social histories' that largely ignore the life of the mind. In some ways, Davie is a Scottish equivalent of Maurice Cowling though he ranges more widely. In retrospect, I feel that Davie endorses an overly conservative approach to Scottish institutions (albeit a pro-Home Rule conservatism) that needs to be revised in the light of the practicalities of power, as does his opposition to a caricatured Anglican culture. All the same, no-one will understand much about modern Scotland or the Home Rule movement without reading this book and its successor Crisis of the Democratic Intellect (1986).
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
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1 review
Straight from the intellectual heart of Scotland
22 July 2011
Format:Paperback
This is a classic study of Scottish high culture seen through the Universities of the 19th century that originally appeared in 1961. In its day it was responsible for creating a generation of cultural nationalists united around a civic project that led to the restoration of the Scottish Parliament in 1999.
Davie charts a narrative of decline of a predominantly Presbyterian culture that had distinctive approaches to mathematics and science, to literature and to philosophy drawing on Continental traditions that it held in tension with more pragmatic influences from England in the context of Empire. Through three successive Westminster Parliament University Commissions, the distinctness and integrity of this 'democratic intellect' was worn and chipped away. Funding was refused for cultural innovations and thus living traditions ossified.
So we are told at any rate and so many of us believed for many a year. There is certainly a goldmine of facts and history here much of which you will not find in our populist 'social histories' that largely ignore the life of the mind. In some ways, Davie is a Scottish equivalent of Maurice Cowling though he ranges more widely than religion and politics. In retrospect, I feel that Davie endorses an overly conservative approach to Scottish institutions (albeit a pro-Home Rule conservatism) that needs to be revised in the light of the practicalities of power, as does the opposition to a caricatured Anglican culture. All the same, no-one will understand much about modern Scotland or the Home Rule movement without reading this book and its successor Crisis of the Democratic Intellect: The Problem of Generalization and Specialization in Twentieth-century Scotland (1986).
Davie charts a narrative of decline of a predominantly Presbyterian culture that had distinctive approaches to mathematics and science, to literature and to philosophy drawing on Continental traditions that it held in tension with more pragmatic influences from England in the context of Empire. Through three successive Westminster Parliament University Commissions, the distinctness and integrity of this 'democratic intellect' was worn and chipped away. Funding was refused for cultural innovations and thus living traditions ossified.
So we are told at any rate and so many of us believed for many a year. There is certainly a goldmine of facts and history here much of which you will not find in our populist 'social histories' that largely ignore the life of the mind. In some ways, Davie is a Scottish equivalent of Maurice Cowling though he ranges more widely than religion and politics. In retrospect, I feel that Davie endorses an overly conservative approach to Scottish institutions (albeit a pro-Home Rule conservatism) that needs to be revised in the light of the practicalities of power, as does the opposition to a caricatured Anglican culture. All the same, no-one will understand much about modern Scotland or the Home Rule movement without reading this book and its successor Crisis of the Democratic Intellect: The Problem of Generalization and Specialization in Twentieth-century Scotland (1986).
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