Association and Enlightenment: Scottish Clubs and Societies, 1700-1830

Social clubs as they existed in eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century Scotland were varied: they could be convivial, sporting, or scholarly, or they could be a significant and dynamic social force, committed to improvement and national regeneration as well as to sociability. The essays in this volume -the first full-length study of the subject in fifty years-examine the complex history of clubs and societies in Scotland from 1700 to 1830. Contributors address attitudes toward associations, their meeting-places and rituals, their links with the growth of the professions and with literary culture, and the ways in which they were structured by both class and gender. By widening the context in which societies are set, this volume offers a new framework for understanding them, bringing together the inheritance of the Scottish past, the unique and cohesive polite culture of the Scottish Enlightenment, and the broader context of associational patterns common to Britain, Ireland, and beyond.

Reviews of Association and Enlightenment: Scottish Clubs and Societies, 1700-1830

"Not many scholarly collections can claim to fill an academic chasm that has lasted more than half-a-century, but Association and Enlightenment does just that. The editors have brought together a volume that explores all that we have discovered about the place of clubs and societies in Scotland during the long eighteenth century, answering many of the questions posed so long ago in Davis D. McElroy's pioneering study of 1969. Bucknell has published what will be a lasting and essential work."–Stephen Brown "co-editor of Edinburgh History of the Book in Scotland: Enlightenment and Expansion 1707-1800" "Association and Enlightenment makes a valuable contribution to the understanding of Scottish organizations and Scottish society during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, and adds a useful new perspective on the era of the Scottish Enlightenment. The editors and chapter authors offer their readers much stimulating material and many insightful interpretations."–David Spadafora "author of The Idea of Progress in Eighteenth-Century Britain"