At last, a bold new map of a period that has hitherto been simply ignored as terra incognita or dismissed as the sorry afterglow of the Scottish Enlightenment. The authors that Fyfe and Kidd have drawn together bring major landmarks on the intellectual horizon of Scotland’s long nineteenth century into clear focus for the first time, but also leave abundant signposts for others to continue the task of exploration.
- David N. Livingstone, Queen's University Belfast,
The history of the intellectual life of the nineteenth century has for too long been squeezed between the glories of the enlightenment and the rhetorical flourishes of the literary renaissance. In this wonderful collection Aileen Fyfe, Colin Kidd and their collaborators have written a rich and stimulating volume that restores the long nineteenth century to its proper place.
- Ewen Cameron, University of Edinburgh,
[The book’s] purpose is to inspire a reconsideration of Scottish intellectual life between the French Revolution and the First World War. That it prompts questions about the organizing principles of intellectual life suggests it does just that.
- Michael Brown, University of Aberdeen, Eighteenth-Century Scotland