On the Edge of Enlightenment

The Historiographical Place of the Scottish Highlands in the Enlightenment

Abstract

When considering Scotland’s place in the Enlightenment, the nation’s economic growth, its investments in universities and education, and eighteenth-century Scotland’s place as Europe’s centre for scientific and medical research loom large—as do the writings and ideas of thinkers such as Frances Hutcheson, Adam Smith, James Hutton, Thomas Reid, and David Hume. However, these developments, while impressive, barely encapsulate all of the changes which Scotland experienced during the Age of Enlightenment. The Scottish Highlands, for instance, underwent immense changes during the Age of Enlightenment, as the region—which had been economically, socially, and culturally distinct from the rest of Scotland since the Middle Ages—was increasingly integrated into the rest of Scotland and the British Empire through the commercialization of estates, the spread of the market economy, and the breakdown of the traditional clan system—resulting in widespread emigration from the Highlands to the Lowlands or overseas colonies. This paper thus explores the historiographical place of the Scottish Highlands in the Enlightenment, examining how and why historians have connected or disconnected the region from the intellectual and cultural movement. Beginning with a review of earlier seminal works which portrayed the eighteenth-century Highlands as a backward region shaped by “inevitable” external forces, and closing with more recent works which refute those of earlier decades and emphasize the complexity of the Highlands, as well as works which contend that the changes experienced in the eighteenth-century Scottish Highlands were a direct result of Enlightenment ideals and developments.