The Scottish Enlightenment shaped a new conception of history as a gradual and universal progress from savagery to civil society. The Scottish Enlightenment's legacy for modernity emerges here as a two-faced Janus, an unresolved tension between universalism and hierarchy, progress and the limits of progress.

Introduction: The Scottish Enlightenment as Historiographic Problem 1. Hume versus Montesquieu: Race Against Climate 2. The Natural History of Humankind and the Natural History of Man 3. Ignoble Savages: a Blank in the History of the Species 4. Universal Prerogatives of Humankind 5. Measures of Civilization: Women, Races, and Progress Conclusion    

Shortlisted for the Istvan Hont Prize.

'The most important study of the eighteenth-century Scottish historians since Colin Kidd's Subverting Scotland's Past It is a book which establishes Sebastiani as one of the leading European intellectual historians of her generation.' - John Robertson, University of Cambridge, UK

'Sebastiani's provocative and persuasive contribution to studies of Enlightenment thought demonstrates the centrality of arguments about progress and their complex connection to notions of national character, race, gender and nation.' - John Brewer, Eli and Edye Broad Professor of Humanities and Social Sciences, California Institute of Technology, USA

'Silvia Sebastiani's study offers important new insights into the Scottish Enlightenment that both deepen and defamiliarize our understanding of the progressive histories that emanated from eighteenth-century Scotland.' - Karen O'Brien, Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Education, University of Birmingham, UK

<'Silvia Sebastiani teases out the complex relationship between progress, civilization, and human difference in the Scottish Enlightenment She adds immeasurably to our understanding of the eighteenth-century 'Science of Man' and its legacies to modern thought.' - Barbara Taylor, Professor of Humanities, Queen Mary, University of London, UK

'It is real pleasure to see Silvia Sebastiani's fine study in an English edition. Every student of the Scottish Enlightenment will benefit from a book that provides such lucid commentary on many central issues of this critical period.' - Mark Salber Phillips, Professor of History, Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada

'In this well-researched, insightful book, Silvia Sebastiani delivers the first extensive analysis of race and gender in Scottish Enlightenment thought. In the process, she deftly investigates previously under-explored aspects of eighteenth-century debates.' - Richard B. Sher, author of The Enlightenment and the Book        

Shortlisted for the Istvan Hont Prize. 'The most important study of the eighteenth-century Scottish historians since Colin Kidd's Subverting Scotland's Past It is a book which establishes Sebastiani as one of the leading European intellectual historians of her generation.' - John Robertson, University of Cambridge, UK 'Sebastiani's provocative and persuasive contribution to studies of Enlightenment thought demonstrates the centrality of arguments about progress and their complex connection to notions of national character, race, gender and nation.' - John Brewer, Eli and Edye Broad Professor of Humanities and Social Sciences, California Institute of Technology, USA 'Silvia Sebastiani's study offers important new insights into the Scottish Enlightenment that both deepen and defamiliarize our understanding of the progressive histories that emanated from eighteenth-century Scotland.' - Karen O'Brien, Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Education, University of Birmingham, UK <'Silvia Sebastiani teases out the complex relationship between progress, civilization, and human difference in the Scottish Enlightenment She adds immeasurably to our understanding of the eighteenth-century 'Science of Man' and its legacies to modern thought.' - Barbara Taylor, Professor of Humanities, Queen Mary, University of London, UK 'It is real pleasure to see Silvia Sebastiani's fine study in an English edition. Every student of the Scottish Enlightenment will benefit from a book that provides such lucid commentary on many central issues of this critical period.' - Mark Salber Phillips, Professor of History, Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada 'In this well-researched, insightful book, Silvia Sebastiani delivers the first extensive analysis of race and gender in Scottish Enlightenment thought. In the process, she deftly investigates previously under-explored aspects of eighteenth-century debates.' - Richard B. Sher, author of The Enlightenment and the Book

Co-Winner of the Institute of Intellectual History's 2013 István Hont Book Prize Examines how the difference between monogenist and polygenist accounts of the origin of the human race was reflected in, and helped to shape, Scottish Enlightenment accounts of society's progress through historical stages Reveals how concepts of race and the role of women were treated by historians, philosophers, and other thinkers.

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