This collection explores the richness of Scottish intellectual life, its currents and controversies, from the French Revolution to the First World War, focusing in particular on the legacy of the Scottish Enlightenment. Offering a series of cutting-edge interventions, the contributors cast light on a range of individuals, themes and episodes from the period. Topics range from the role of women as intellectuals to the rise of a science of race, and from freethinking secularism to the debate over George Davie's influential account of 19th-century universities.

Collectively, the chapters represent a pioneering overview of Scottish intellectual life during the long 19th century.