In the early eighteenth century, Edinburghwas a filthy backwater synonymous with poverty and disease, and recently famous for religious persecution. When this small walled-off city surrendered to a handful of Highlanders in 1745, things had never looked bleaker. Yet by century's end, the ancient Scottish capital had become the marvel of modern Europe, thanks to a group of friends whose trailblazing ingenuity and passion for ideas changed the way all of us look at the world.
It was in Edinburgh that a unique gathering of the finest minds of the day came together and made breathtaking innovations in architecture, politics, science, the arts and economics, all of which continue to echo loudly today. This was a time of radical upheaval and advancement, and a place of such cerebral stature as to rival the Athens of Socrates. Adam Smith penned The Wealth of Nations. James Boswell produced The Life of Samuel Johnson. Alongside them, pioneers -- such as the philosophers David Hume and Adam Ferguson, the poet Robert Burns, the chemist James Black, the geologist James Hutton, and the novelist Sir Walter Scott -- transformed the way we understand our perceptions and feelings, sickness and health, relations between the sexes, the natural world, and the purpose of existence.
In Crowded with Genius, James Buchan, himself a Scot with a strong attachment to this history, beautifully reconstructs the intimate geographic scale and boundless intellectual milieu of Enlightenment Edinburgh. With the scholarship of a historian and the elegance of a novelist, he tells the story of the triumph of this unlikely town and the men whose vision brought it into being. Buchan has written an extraordinary account of the movement that turned Edinburgh from a city under siege into a hotbed of brilliant achievements that changed the course of history and gave birth to the modern mind.

Crowded with Genius: The Scottish Enlightenment: Edinburgh's Moment of the Mind

History

BUCHAN, JAMES

Europe

Harper

In the early eighteenth century, Edinburgh was a filthy backwater town synonymous with poverty and disease. Yet by century's end, it had become the marvel of modern Europe, home to the finest minds of the day and their breathtaking innovations in architecture, politics, science, the arts, and economics—all of which continue to echo loudly today.
Adam Smith penned The Wealth of Nations. James Boswell produced The Life of Samuel Johnson. Alongside them, pioneers such as David Hume, Robert Burns, James Hutton, and Sir Walter Scott transformed the way we understand our perceptions and feelings, sickness and health, relations between the sexes, the natural world, and the purpose of existence.
In Crowded with Genius, James Buchan beautifully reconstructs the intimate geographic scale and boundless intellectual milieu of Enlightenment Edinburgh. With the scholarship of a historian and the elegance of a novelist, he tells the story of the triumph of this unlikely town and the men whose vision brought it into being.

Harper-perennial

A Parish of Rich Women

A Parish Of Rich Women

Literature & Fiction

Penguin Books 1985

Upon his return home from Palestine, Adam Murray feels alienated from British society, but another trip to Palestine convinces him the two societies are much alike

Contemporary

Hamish Hamilton, London

London 1987 1st Hamilton. 8vo., 145pp. Fine in VG DJ.

Davy Chadwick

Mystery, Thriller & Suspense

Hamish Hamilton Ltd.

Frozen Desire: The Meaning of Money.

Business & Money

Economics

Publisher

'Frozen Desire is concerned with humanity itself. Describing a portrait of Judas, Buchan observes: "Money provokes people to act, for the sake of payment, in a fashion that, if they knew how the action would turn out, they would not contemplate." This sustained, wide-ranging essay has a spiritual quality' Paul Bailey, Daily Telegraph, Books of the Year 'A delightfully quirky book about one man's obsession with everybody else's obsession with money ...a great read' William Keegan, Guardian 'An original, elegant, powerful and often beautiful work ...Buchan in full flow is magnificent' Nick Cohen, New Statesman 'Easily the most pleasure I've had from a book this year ...A journey through the dangerous and little-exposed country between the novelist's rough pasture and the neat fields of the economist' Martin Taylor, Sunday Telegraph 'Buchan's picture of monetary "culture" strikes me as irrefutable' Michael Dirda, Washington Post 'A fascinating book, full of learning and poetically written ...For its many insight into what money has meant to different people in history, as well as for its passion, Frozen Desire deserves to be read' The Economist

Frozen Desire

Picador

Thatched village

Hodder and Stoughton

This literary thriller is set in southern Italy where an English family, the Chadwicks, are living when their five year old son is kidnapped. The author's first novel, "A Parish of Rich Women" won several literary prizes including the Whitbread Prize for the Best First Novel of 1984.

Genre Fiction

Hodder & Stoughton General Division

A thriller about the last major crisis of the Cold War finds American and British intelligence officers involved in romance and murder as U.S., British, German, and Russian diplomats secretly meet to contend for the fate of Europe.

The Golden Plough: A Novel

Farrar. Straus & Giroux

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