{"product_id":"how-the-scots-invented-the-modern-world-isbn-9780609809990","title":"How the Scots Invented the Modern World","description":"\u003cb\u003eAn exciting account of the origins of the  modern world\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWho  formed the first literate society? Who invented our modern ideas of  democracy and free market capitalism? The Scots. As historian and author  Arthur Herman reveals, in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries  Scotland made crucial contributions to science, philosophy, literature,  education, medicine, commerce, and politics—contributions that have  formed and nurtured the modern West ever since.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHerman has charted a fascinating journey across the centuries  of Scottish history. Here is the untold story of how John Knox and the Church  of Scotland laid the foundation for our modern idea of democracy; how the Scottish  Enlightenment helped to inspire both the American Revolution and the U.S. Constitution;  and how thousands of Scottish immigrants left their homes to create the American  frontier, the Australian outback, and the British Empire in India and Hong Kong.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003eHow the Scots Invented the Modern World\u003c\/i\u003e reveals how Scottish genius for creating  the basic ideas and institutions of modern life stamped the lives of a series of  remarkable historical figures, from James Watt and Adam Smith to Andrew Carnegie  and Arthur Conan Doyle, and how Scottish heroes continue to inspire our contemporary  culture, from William “Braveheart” Wallace to James Bond.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e And no one who takes this incredible historical trek will ever view the Scots—or the modern West—in the same way again.“Finally we have a book that explains how the . . . Scots created the modern civilized   values America and the Western world still uphold. This is a great book, one which   is now even more relevant than ever.”\u003cb\u003e—Michael Barone, \u003ci\u003eU.S. News \u0026amp; World Report\u003c\/i\u003e, coauthor   of\u003ci\u003e The Almanac of American Politics\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “Arthur Herman provides a convincing and compelling   argument. . . . He is a natural writer, weaving philosophical concerns seamlessly   through a historical narrative that romps along at a cracking pace.”\u003cb\u003e—Irvine Welsh, \u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eThe Guardian\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “Herman’s book tells an exciting story with gusto . . . its range and   narrative verve make it an entertaining and illuminating read.”\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eSunday Times\u003c\/i\u003e (London)\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003eArthur Herman\u003c\/b\u003e is the bestselling author of\u003ci\u003e The Cave and the Light,\u003c\/i\u003e \u003ci\u003eFreedom’s Forge, How the Scots Invented the Modern World, The Idea of Decline in Western History, To Rule the Waves, \u003c\/i\u003eand\u003ci\u003e Gandhi \u0026amp; Churchill,\u003c\/i\u003e which was a 2009 finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. Dr. Herman taught the  Western Heritage Program at the Smithsonian’s Campus on the Mall, and  he has been a professor of history at Georgetown University, The  Catholic University of America, George Mason University, and The  University of the South at Sewanee.\u003cb\u003eThe New Jerusalem\u003cbr\u003e \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e I\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Just as the German Reformation was largely the work of a   single individual, Martin Luther, so the Scottish Reformation was the achievement   of one man of heroic will and tireless energy: John Knox.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Like Luther, Knox left   an indelible mark on his national culture. Uncompromising, dogmatic, and driven,   John Knox was a prolific writer and a preacher of truly terrifying power. His early   years as a Protestant firebrand had been spent in exile, imprisonment, and even penal   servitude chained to a rowing bench in the king's galleys. The harsh trials toughened   him physically and spiritually for what was to come. He became John Knox, \"he who   feared the face of no man.\" Beginning in 1559, Knox single-handedly inspired, intimidated,   and bullied Scotland's nobility and urban classes into overthrowing the Catholic   Church of their forebears and adopting the religious creed of Geneva's John Calvin.   Its austere and harsh dogmas?that the Bible was the literal Word of God, that the   God of that Bible was a stern and jealous God, filled with wrath at all sinners and   blasphemers, and that the individual soul was by God's grace predestined to heaven   or hell regardless of any good works or charitable intentions?were themselves natural   extensions of Knox's own personality. Calvinism seemed as natural to him as breathing,   and he taught a generation of Scotsmen to believe the same thing themselves.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Above   all, John Knox wanted to turn the Scots into God's chosen people, and Scotland into   the New Jerusalem. To do this, Knox was willing to sweep away everything about Scotland's   past that linked it to the Catholic Church. As one admirer said, \"Others snipped   at the branches of Popery; but he strikes at the roots, to destroy the whole.\" He   and his followers scoured away not only Scottish Catholicism but all its physical   manifestations, from monasteries and bishops and clerical vestments to holy relics   and market-square crosses. They smashed stained-glass windows and saints' statues,   ripped out choir stalls and roodscreens, and overturned altars. All these symbols   of a centuries-old tradition of religious culture, which we would call great works   of art, were for Knox marks of \"idolatry\" and \"the synagogue of Satan,\" as he called   the Roman Catholic Church. In any case, the idols disappeared from southern Scotland,   and the Scottish Kirk rose up to take their place.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Knox and his lieutenants also   imposed the new rules of the Calvinist Sabbath on Scottish society: no working (people   could be arrested for plucking a chicken on Sunday), no dancing, and no playing of   the pipes. Gambling, cardplaying, and the theater were banned. No one could move   out of a parish without written permission of the minister. The Kirk wiped out all   traditional forms of collective fun, such as Carnival, Maytime celebrations, mumming,   and Passion plays. Fornication brought punishment and exile; adultery meant death.   The church courts, or kirk-sessions, enforced the law with scourges, pillories, branks   (a padlocked iron helmet that forced an iron plate into the mouth of a convicted   liar or blasphemer), ducking-stools, banishment, and, in the case of witches or those   possessed by the devil, burning at the stake.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e The faithful received one single compensation   for this harsh authoritarian regime, and it was a powerful one: direct access to   God. The right of communion, receiving the body and blood of Christ in the form of   wine and bread, now belonged to everyone, rich and poor, young and old, men and women.   In the Catholic Church, the Bible had been literally a closed book. Now anyone who   could read, or listen to someone else read, could absorb the Word of God. On Sundays   the church rafters rang with the singing of psalms and recitations from the Gospel.   The Lord's Supper became a community festival, with quantities, sometimes plentiful,   of red wine and shortcake (John Knox presided over one Sunday communion where the   congregation consumed eight and a half gallons of claret).\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e The congregation was   the center of everything. It elected its own board of elders or presbyters; it even   chose its minister. The congregation's board of elders, the consistory, cared for   the poor and the sick; it fed and clothed the community's orphans. Girls who were   too poor to have a dowry to tempt a prospective husband got one from the consistory.   It was more than just fear of the ducking-stool or the stake that bound the Kirk   together. It was a community united by its commitment to God and its sense of chosenness.   \"God loveth us,\" John Knox had written, \"because we are His own handiwork.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e To a   large extent Knox's mission to create the New Jerusalem in Scotland succeeded. The   Reformation laid down strong roots in the Scottish Lowlands, that belt of fertile   land and river valleys running from the Firth of Clyde and Glasgow in the extreme   west to just north of Carlisle and Hadrian's Wall across to Edinburgh and Berwick-on-Tweed   in the east. North of this in the beautiful but barren and sparsely populated Highlands,   its record was more spotty. But in all the areas that came under his influence, the   Kirk created a new society in the image of Knox's utopian ideal. It had turned its   back not only on Scotland's past, but on all purely secular values, no matter what   the source. Knox made his view clear in one of his last letters before he died in   November 1572. \"All worldlie strength, yea even in things spiritual, decays, and   yet shall never the work of God decay.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e One of those pillars of \"worldlie strength\"   that Knox despised was political authority, or more precisely the power of monarchs.   Perhaps because Knox's closest allies were Scottish nobles who wanted to see the   Scottish monarchy tamed, or because nearly every monarch he dealt with was either   a child or a woman (the boy king Edward VI of England, Mary Queen of Scots, the Scottish   Regent Mary of Guise, and English queens Mary Tudor and Elizabeth I), he treated   them all with impatience and contempt. Yet neither Mary of Guise nor Mary Queen of   Scots could do without him. Even though they were Catholics, Knox represented a spiritual   authority they needed to legitimize their own. When Queen Mary announced her plans   to marry her worthless cousin Lord Darnley, Knox gave her such a fierce public scolding   that she burst into tears in full view of her court. She made the mistake of marrying   Darnley anyway, and set in motion the series of scandals that would finally push   her off the throne. By 1570, Knox recognized that Mary no longer had any part to   play in making the New Jerusalem and he swept her aside, like a useless piece from   the game board. Her infant son James VI was installed in her place, with George Buchanan,   Scotland's leading humanist, as his tutor, so that the boy could be raised in the   Presbyterian faith.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Knox and Buchanan believed that political power was ordained   by God, but that that power was vested not in kings or in nobles or even in the clergy,   but in the people. The Presbyterian covenant with God required them to defend that   power against any interloper. Punishing idolatry and destroying tyranny was a sacred   duty laid by God on \"the whole body of the people,\" Knox wrote, \"and of every man   in his vocation.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Here was a vision of politics unlike any other at the time. George   Buchanan turned it into a full-fledged doctrine of popular sovereignty, the first   in Europe. Buchanan came from Stirlingshire in central Scotland, at a time when it   was still much like the Highlands in its culture and character -- in fact, Buchanan   grew up speaking both Gaelic and Scots. He studied at the University of St. Andrews   and then at the University of Paris alongside other future giants of the Reformation   such as John Calvin and Ignatius Loyola, the later founder of the Jesuits. As a Greek   and Latin scholar, Buchanan had few peers. But he was also a founding father of Scottish   Presbyterianism: he served as Moderator of the Kirk's General Assembly -- the only   layman ever to do so -- and helped write the Kirk's First Book of Discipline. His   greatest achievement, however, was his book on the nature of political authority,   titled The Law of Government Among the Scots, published in 1579.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e In it Buchanan   asserted that all political authority ultimately belonged to the people, who came   together to elect someone, whether a king or a body of magistrates, to manage their   affairs. The people were always more powerful than the rulers they created; they   were free to remove them at will. \"The people,\" he explained, \"have the right to   confer the royal authority upon whomever they wish.\" This is the sort of view we   are used to ascribing to John Locke; in fact, it belongs to a Presbyterian Scot from   Stirlingshire writing more than a hundred years earlier. And Buchanan went further.   When the ruler or rulers failed to act in the people's interest, Buchanan wrote,   then each and every citizen, even \"the lowest and meanest of men,\" had the sacred   right and duty to resist that tyrant, even to the point of killing him.The New York Times Bestseller","brand":"Crown","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46304051396837,"sku":"NP9780609809990","price":20.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780609809990.jpg?v=1767729347","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/how-the-scots-invented-the-modern-world-isbn-9780609809990","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}