From Publishers Weekly
In a span of 50 years in the late 18th century, Edinburgh, a city of merely 40,000 inhabitants, contained some of the Enlightenment's most important thinkers, such as philosopher David Hume, economist Adam Smith, biographer James Boswell and scientist James Hutton. Buchan, a Whitbread-winning novelist and critic, brings this remarkable era to life, opening with a brief history of the failed rebellion of 1745 and the romanticism that lingered in the Scottish psyche. He also stresses the importance of the Presbyterian Church, but emphasizes that it lost much of its power over Scottish intellectuals. One such intellectual was the influential philosopher David Hume, who was attacked as a heretic but being, in his own words, "naturally of cheerful and sanguine temper," he "soon recovered the blow." A similarly sharp portrait is painted of the life and work of Adam Smith, whose work expressed the rise of the power of commercialism. Buchan also devotes some of his narrative to science, examining Edinburgh as a global center of medical education, and to literature, in which Scotsmen such as novelist Henry Mackenzie and poet Robert Burns would blaze the way for the Age of Romanticism. Throughout, Buchan writes well and does a fine job arguing the case for Edinburgh's disproportionately large impact on 18th-century intellectual history. Yet much of this material has been covered before, most recently in Arthur Herman's enjoyable How the Scots Invented the Modern World, which many readers might find more accessible on complex matters like Hume's philosophy. 16 pages of b&w photos not seen by PW.Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Booklist
*Starred Review* Nothing surprised eighteenth-century residents of London and Paris more than the unexpected emergence of Edinburgh as a center of cultural illumination. Critic and novelist Buchan recounts the ascendance of the Scottish capital in a spellbinding chronicle of municipal renascence. Curiously, that renascence begins with the disaster that Scottish forces bring upon themselves in 1745 by rallying around the Young Pretender. In that debacle, Buchan identifies the shock that emboldens a long-benighted people into breaking with a past of kirk and clan. The subsequent narrative--alive with personalities, rich in ideas--introduces readers to the philosophers who transform a defeated city into a triumphant new Athens with powerful theories in ethics (Hutcheson), economics (Smith), logic (Hume), and natural history (Hutton). And while Scottish philosophers instruct the world in principles of wealth and geology, Scottish literary artists thrill the globe with unparalleled works of sentiment (Mackenzie) and sublimity (MacPherson). At home, proud Edinburghers stroll streets lined with buildings of admirable new architecture (Craig), including an imposing new hospital providing the laboratory for daring experiments in medicine (Cullen). But the Edinburgh miracle cannot last: the supreme Scottish bard, Robert Burns, sings the swan song of the epoch when he visits the city shortly before the horrors of the French Revolution plunge all of Great Britain into chill conservatism. An impressively sophisticated and multilayered cultural history. Bryce Christensen
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved


Book Description

In the early eighteenth century, Edinburghwas a filthy backwater synonymous with poverty and disease, and recently famous for religious persecution. When this small walled-off city surrendered to a handful of Highlanders in 1745, things had never looked bleaker. Yet by century's end, the ancient Scottish capital had become the marvel of modern Europe, thanks to a group of friends whose trailblazing ingenuity and passion for ideas changed the way all of us look at the world.

It was in Edinburgh that a unique gathering of the finest minds of the day came together and made breathtaking innovations in architecture, politics, science, the arts and economics, all of which continue to echo loudly today. This was a time of radical upheaval and advancement, and a place of such cerebral stature as to rival the Athens of Socrates. Adam Smith penned The Wealth of Nations. James Boswell produced The Life of Samuel Johnson. Alongside them, pioneers -- such as the philosophers David Hume and Adam Ferguson, the poet Robert Burns, the chemist James Black, the geologist James Hutton, and the novelist Sir Walter Scott -- transformed the way we understand our perceptions and feelings, sickness and health, relations between the sexes, the natural world, and the purpose of existence.

In Crowded with Genius, James Buchan, himself a Scot with a strong attachment to this history, beautifully reconstructs the intimate geographic scale and boundless intellectual milieu of Enlightenment Edinburgh. With the scholarship of a historian and the elegance of a novelist, he tells the story of the triumph of this unlikely town and the men whose vision brought it into being. Buchan has written an extraordinary account of the movement that turned Edinburgh from a city under siege into a hotbed of brilliant achievements that changed the course of history and gave birth to the modern mind.


About the Author
James Buchan is a novelist and critic. He is the author of The Persian Bride, a New York Times Notable Book, as well as Frozen Desire, an examination of money that received the Duff Cooper Prize. He has also won the Whitbread First Novel Award and the Guardian Fiction Prize. Buchan is a contributor to the New York Times Book Review and the New York Observer, and a former foreign correspondent for the Financial Times. He lives in Norfolk, England.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

In the early eighteenth century, Edinburgh was a filthy backwater synonymous with poverty and disease, and recently famous for religious persecution. When this small walled-off city surrendered to a handful of Highlanders in 1745, things had never looked bleaker. Yet by century's end, the ancient Scottish capital had become the marvel of modern Europe, thanks to a group of friends whose trailblazing ingenuity and passion for ideas changed the way all of us look at the world.

In Crowded with Genius, James Buchan, himself a Scot with a strong attachment to this history, beautifully reconstructs the intimate geographic scale and boundless intellectual milieu of Enlightenment Edinburgh. With the scholarship of a historian and the elegance of a novelist, he tells the story of the triumph of this unlikely town and the men whose vision brought it into being. Buchan has written an extraordinary account of the movement that turned Edinburgh from a city under siege into a hotbed of brilliant achievements that changed the course of history and gave birth to the modern mind.

FROM THE CRITICS

The Washington Post

In Britain this book was published last year as Capital of the Mind: How Edinburgh Changed the World. A rather flat title, in my view. I think Crowded with Genius better describes James Buchan's tightly packed, rich but demanding and just slightly overwhelming work of intellectual history. — Michael Dirda

Publishers Weekly

In a span of 50 years in the late 18th century, Edinburgh, a city of merely 40,000 inhabitants, contained some of the Enlightenment's most important thinkers, such as philosopher David Hume, economist Adam Smith, biographer James Boswell and scientist James Hutton. Buchan, a Whitbread-winning novelist and critic, brings this remarkable era to life, opening with a brief history of the failed rebellion of 1745 and the romanticism that lingered in the Scottish psyche. He also stresses the importance of the Presbyterian Church, but emphasizes that it lost much of its power over Scottish intellectuals. One such intellectual was the influential philosopher David Hume, who was attacked as a heretic but being, in his own words, "naturally of cheerful and sanguine temper," he "soon recovered the blow." A similarly sharp portrait is painted of the life and work of Adam Smith, whose work expressed the rise of the power of commercialism. Buchan also devotes some of his narrative to science, examining Edinburgh as a global center of medical education, and to literature, in which Scotsmen such as novelist Henry Mackenzie and poet Robert Burns would blaze the way for the Age of Romanticism. Throughout, Buchan writes well and does a fine job arguing the case for Edinburgh's disproportionately large impact on 18th-century intellectual history. Yet much of this material has been covered before, most recently in Arthur Herman's enjoyable How the Scots Invented the Modern World, which many readers might find more accessible on complex matters like Hume's philosophy. 16 pages of b&w photos not seen by PW. (Nov. 28) Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

Until the early 1700s, Edinburgh, Scotland, was considered a smelly backwater, mockingly known as auld reekie. After the union with England, the city became, for a short time, the epicenter of learning, contributing enormously to the age of science and reason. Men such as David Hume, Adam Smith, and James Hutton were only a few of the influential figures that contributed to this modern-day Athens. In addition to the huge strides made in medicine, agriculture, and economics, novelist and critic Buchan (The Persian Bride; Frozen Desire) discusses Edinburgh's cultural reawakening and its focus on building projects to boost its world-class status. He argues that the "well-established Protestant institutions" in Scotland contributed greatly to the intellectual and creative innovations that characterized Edinburgh in the 18th century, yet it was the very questioning of strict Calvinism that freed men's minds as they attempted to understand the world around them. Much is made of the philosophical underpinnings of Edinburgh's achievements, which unfortunately can make for dry and ponderous reading. This book will be of interest chiefly to serious students of Scottish history. Recommended for academic libraries and large public libraries with special collections in British history.-Isabel Coates, MISt, CCRA-Toronto West Tax Office, Mississauga, Ont. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews