The Scottish Enlightenment: everything you wanted to know

Welcome to the History Extra podcast, fascinating historical conversations from the makers of BBC History magazine. In everything from the social sciences and technology to art and architecture, 18th century Scotland witnessed a flowering of ideas and innovation. But what made the Enlightenment in Scotland different to the rest of Europe? Who were some of its key thinkers? And why were so few women involved?

To answer the key questions on the Scottish Enlightenment, I spoke to Professor Craig Smith from the University of Glasgow. Let's begin then, Craig, with a real basic question that we need to know before going any further. What was the Scottish Enlightenment? The Scottish Enlightenment was a kind of outpouring of artistic and academic and scientific achievement that took place in Scotland in the second half of the 18th century. And it involved some very prominent philosophers like David Hume, historians like William Robertson, economists like Adam Smith.

who really brought Scotland to the forefront of the wider European Enlightenment. You mentioned that this happened in the second half of the 18th century. Can we nail that down any more or is it one of these big historical trends that's quite hard to pin an end date and a start date to? There's a huge debate about this, as you might imagine, amongst historians. So

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