Abstract
A great deal of thinking in Scotland during the second half of the eighteenth century was devoted to the problem of the diversity and differences among peoples of the earth. The idea of ‘progress’, which has been considered the specific contribution of the Scottish Enlightenment to the European Enlightenment, was one result.1 Adam Smith, Adam Ferguson, William Robertson, John Millar and Lord Kames all contributed to a new historical approach, which shifted attention from chronology to manners, and from kings and heroes to the path of peoples towards civilization. Through the comparison of different societies, progress was shown to emerge from changes across economic, political, social and cultural spheres. Differences between peoples were explained within a scheme of historical development: from simple, rough and lawless to refined, polite and commercial societies.2
I would like to thank all the participants of the working group on Feminism and Enlightenment for their useful and stimulating observations and comments; and John Robertson, John Brewer, Hans Bödeker, Luciano Gueri, and Mario Caricchio for having read and commented more versions of this chapter. I’m also grateful to Carina Bischoff, Zoe Bray, Jacqueline Gordon, and Jacob Cameron who, while correcting my English, also helped me to clarify my argument.
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Notes
H. R. Trevor-Roper, ‘The Scottish Enlightenment’, Studies on Voltaire and Eighteenth Century, 58 (1967), 1635–58
J. Robertson, ‘The Scottish Enlightenment’, Rivista Storica Italiana, CVIII (1996), 792–829; Id., ‘The Scottish Contribution to the Enlightenment’, in P. Wood, ed., The Scottish Enlightenment: Essays in Reinterpretation (Woodbridge, Suffolk, 2000), pp. ([0-9]+)–([0-9]+).
M. S. Phillips, ‘Reconsideration on History and Antiquarianism: Arnaldo Momigliano and the Historiography of Eighteenth-Century Britain’, Journal of the History of Ideas, 57, n. 2, (1996), 297–316; Id., “If Mrs. Mure Be Not sorry For the Poor King Charles’: History, Novel, and The Sentimental Reader”, History Workshop Journal, 43, (1997), ([0-9]+)–([0-9]+); Id., Society and Sentiment. Genres of Historical Writing in Britain, ([0-9]+)–([0-9]+) (Princeton, 2000); R. L. Meek, Social Science and Ignoble Savage (Cambridge, 1976); R. B. Sher, ‘From Troglodytes to Americans: Montesquieu and the Scottish Enlightenment on Liberty, Virtue, and Commerce’, in D. Wootton, ed. by, Liberty and Commercial Society ([0-9]+)–([0-9]+) (Stanford, 1994), pp. ([0-9]+)–([0-9]+).
For a gendered definition of the ‘ethos of commerce’ in the British context, see: J. G. A. Pocock, ‘Clergy and Commerce: The Conservative Enlightenment in England’, in L’età dei lumi: Studi storici sul settecento europeo in onore di Franco Venturi (Napoli, 1985), vol. I, pp. 525–62; for the French context, see Janny Mander’s contribution to this volume.
S. Tomaselli, ‘The Enlightenment Debate on Women’, History Workshop Journal, 20 (1985), pp. 101–24; Ea, ‘Woman in Enlightenment Conjectural Histories’, in H. E. Bödeker, L. Steinbrügge, eds, Conceptualising Woman in Enlightenment Thought (Berlin, 2001), pp. ([0-9])–([0-9])2.
W. Alexander, The History of Women, from the Earliest Antiquity, to the Present Time; giving some Account of almost every interesting Particular concerning that Sex, among all Nations, ancient and modern, 2 vols (London, 1779), vol. I, p. 492.
F. Hutcheson, A System of Moral Philosophy, in three books, 2 vols (Glasgow 1755), vol. II, p. 163; J. Rendall, The Origins of Modern Feminism: Women in Britain, France and United States ([0-9]+)–([0-9]+) (London, 1985) pp. ([0-9]+)–([0-9]+); for the German intellectual context, see: I. H. Hull, Sexuality, State, and Civil Society, p. 163.
J. G. A. Pocock, Barbarism and Religion. Narratives of Civil Government, vol. 2 (Cambridge, 1999), vol. II, pp. 316–28.
On racial discourse in the Scottish Enlightenment, see S. Sebastiani, ‘Storia universale e teoria stadiale negli Sketches of the History of Man di Lord Kames’, Studi Storici, 39, (1998), 113–36; Ead, ‘Progress, National Characters, and Race in the Scottish Enlightenment’, Eighteenth-Century Scotland, 14 (2000), ([0-9]+)–([0-9]+); Ead, ‘Razze, donne e progresso nell’Illuminismo Scozzese’, Passato e Presente, 50, (2000), ([0-9]+)–([0-9]+); K. O’Brien, ‘Between Enlightenment and stadial history: William Robertson on the history of Europe’, British Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies, vol. XVI, 1 (1993), ([0-9]+)–([0-9]+); Ead, Narratives of Enlightenment. Cosmopolitan history from Voltaire to Gibbon (Cambridge, 1997); S. J. Brown, ed., William Robertson and the Expansion of Empire (Cambridge, 1997).
L. Schiebinger, ‘The Anatomy of Difference: Race and Sex in Eighteenth-Century Science’, Eighteenth Century Studies, 23 (1990), 387–96; Ead, Nature’s Body. Sexual Politics and the Making of Modern Science (London, 1994), esp. ch. 5; G. L. L. Buffon, Histoire Naturelle Générale et particulière, 15 vols (Paris, ([0-9]+)–([0-9]+)); J. F. Blumenbach, De Generi humani varietate nativa (Göttingen, 1776).
M. Duchet, Anthropologie et Histoire J. Rendall, ‘Introduction’ to W. Alexander, History of Women, 2 vols, reprint of the III ed. (Bath, 1994); L. Brown, ‘Reading Race and Gender: Jonathan Swift’, Eighteenth Century Studies, 23, n. 4 (1990) 440–1; Ead, ‘The Feminisation of Ideology: An Introduction’, in Ends of Empire. Women and Ideology in Early Eighteenth-Century English Literature (Ithaca/London, 1993) pp. ([0-9])–([0-9])2.
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Sebastiani, S. (2005). ‘Race’, Women and Progress in the Scottish Enlightenment. In: Knott, S., Taylor, B. (eds) Women, Gender and Enlightenment. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230554801_6
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