Van Damme, Stephane (2008) The grandeur of Edinburgh. Knowledge and identitary modilization in the XVIIIth century. Revue d'Histoire Moderne et Contemporaine, Vol.55 (No.2). pp. 152-181. ISSN 0048-8003

Abstract

To what extent could Edinburgh be considered as a world-city during the Enlightenment from the intellectual point of view? How could knowledge build an urban centrality? Since the 1970s, research in urban history, in history of science or Enlightenment studies had underlined the dynamism of the Scottish centre. After the union of I 707,Edinburgh lost his status of political capital city of Scotland, but gained those of intellectual capital. This article explores how the transfer could have worked by the development of facilities, by the recognition of university excellence and by the multiplication of places of sociability. The transformation from a provincial pole in Britain to a centre of knowledge could lay on the mobilization of scholars and knowledge at a world-wide scale, by encouraging the inability and the participation of Scottish diasporas. The city aimed to become a point of passage in the constitution of a national cause. By studying the intellectual milieu and the learned practices involved in this claims, one seeks to clarify the stakes of the interpenetration between international recognition and localism.

Data sourced from Thomson Reuters' Web of Knowledge

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