What – and where – was the Scottish Enlightenment? For the past 50 years, scholars have located it in Edinburgh, in the elegant drawing rooms of the New Town, where Adam Smith and James Boswell held forth; in the book stalls of the Old Town, where one might find David Hume or the historian William Robertson in search of a longed-for volume; or in the bustling halls of the University of Edinburgh, where the philosopher Dugald Stewart and the physician Alexander Monro lectured. According to this story, the whole sprawling body of Auld Reekie formed the epicentre of Enlightenment in Scotland. In my new book, The First Scottish Enlightenment, I make a bold but simple claim: this story is false. Or, rather, this story is true, but only so far…
