Race and the Scottish Enlightenment : a colonial history, 1750-1820 / Linda Andersson Burnett and Bruce Buchan.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Andersson Burnett, Linda, author.

Buchan, Bruce, 1968- author.

Series:

Lewis Walpole Series in Eighteenth-Century Culture and History Series

The Lewis Walpole Series in Eighteenth-Century Culture and History Series

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

University of Edinburgh.

University of Edinburgh--History--18th century.

University of Edinburgh History--19th century.

Imperialism--History--18th century.

Imperialism.

Imperialism--History--19th century.

Imperialism--History.

Imperialism--Influence.

Race.

Racism--History.

Racism.

Racism--Scotland--History--18th century.

Racism--Scotland--History--19th century.

Enlightenment--Scotland.

Enlightenment.

Scotland--Intellectual life.

Scotland.

Scotland--Race relations.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xii, 289 pages)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

New Haven : Yale University Press, 2025.

Summary:

"How colonialism shaped the Scottish Enlightenment's conception of race and humanity In the decades after 1750, an increasing number of former medical students from the University of Edinburgh construed humanity as a subject of both intellectual curiosity and colonial interest. They drew on a shared educational background, blending medicine with natural history and moral philosophy, in a range of encounters with non-European and Indigenous peoples across the globe whom they began to classify as races. Focusing on a surprising number of these understudied students, this book reveals the gradual predominance of race in Scottish Enlightenment thought. Teaching provided a toolbox of concepts and theories for students who went on to careers as military and naval surgeons, colonial administrators, and natural historians. While some, such as Mungo Park--who traveled in Africa--are well known, many others such as the long-term residents in the Russian Empire, Matthew Guthrie and his wife, Maria Guthrie, or the Caribbean botanist Alexander Anderson are less remembered. Among this group were those such as the Pacific traveler Archibald Menzies and the circumnavigator of Australia, Robert Brown, who are known primarily as botanists rather than as ethnographers. Together they formed a global network of colonial travelers and natural historians sharing a common educational background and a growing interest in race."-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Colonisation

Curriculum, and the national history of humanity

Medicine, moral philosophy, and human variety

The human species in student dissertations

Edinburgh's mobile ethnographers

Consolidating race, 1790-1800

Collection, curation, and crania in the making of race

Race and the legacy of Scotland's enlightenment.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

ISBN:

0-300-28308-3

9780300283082 (electronic book)_

OCLC:

1527934963