When Scotland Ruled the World: The Story of the Golden Age of Genius, Creativity and Exploration [Hardcover]

Scotland’s people may be few in number, but their influence and contribution have been enormous. This is a fresh and stunning look at 200 years between 1750 and 1950 when the inventiveness and genius of the Scots was seen throughout the world.

In 1750 Scotland had emerged from half a century of civil strife. Its parliament was subsumed by Westminster, English troops kept an eye open for any signs of Jacobite rebellion, and the kilt was forbidden. But despite all this, Scotland was to enjoy an unprecedented period of resurgence and influence which lasted 200 years. This book is the story of that period and the people who dominated it with their ideas and their entrepreneurial skills, explorers in every area of human thought.

It is the story of a people who thrived on the Union and the Empire, and exercised influence far beyond their numbers and their position on the fringes of north-western Europe. The Calvinist system of church/state concordat enabled the frustrations which elsewhere resulted in revolution to pass Scotland by and her energies to be sublimated into creative enterprises.

This fascinating portrait of the golden age of Scottish history includes:
• the seedbed of the “democratic intellect” – Adam Smith, David Hume, etc
• writers including Robert Burns, Walter Scott, Robert Louis Stevenson, etc
• scientists – many names, culminating in Logie Baird, Watson, Watt and Fleming.
• engineers of the Empire
• missionaries and explorers (David Livingstone was the most famous, but there were others)
• medical men – pioneers of surgery and medicine

'From Civil War to backbone of the British Empire'

During the eighteenth century Scotland underwent an amazing transformation. Demoralised by economic failure and civil wars, it somehow managed to turn defeat into glorious opportunity, its brightest minds leading a Renaissance which has lasted over two hundred years. Their achievements outside Scotland led Winston Churchill to say "Of all the small nations of this earth, perhaps only the ancient Greeks surpass the Scots in their contribution to mankind."

This small nation at the edge of Europe, gave the inventors of the steam engine, the telephone, radar, and television. Scotsmen explored the globe, expanding our understanding of the world, while medical discoveries like penicillin changed our view of disease. It was due in no small part to the ingenious and indefatigable Scots that England's colonies became an Empire at all.

Edinburgh was a leading centre in the Age of Enlightenment, the Athens of the North. Scotland's writers can look back on a tradition which takes in everyone from Robert Burns to Adam Smith, Sherlock Holmes to Peter Pan.

In this wonderfully readable book, Stewart Lamont celebrates the people who made Scotland great during two golden centuries. At the very time when the kilt was banned, Scotland produced a string of scientific and literary giants who have made their mark not simply on British history but on the history of the world.