"And so with the sunshine and the great bursts of leaves growing on the trees, just as things grow in fast movies, I had that familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with the summer."

—F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

Many teachers and students unexpectedly finished classes virtually this memorable Spring Semester of 2020. Our daily lives were disrupted, isolating us from our communities as a pandemic unleashed its wrath and reached across the globe. We now live with tremendous uncertainty about how we will live, work, learn, and play in our changed world. We are in it and will do it together, helping each other as we go.
Thank you for exploring our collections and sharing our interest in the works and life of Adam Smith.


 

Our June Collection:

This month’s Teacher Resource Collection focuses on another time in history associated with significant change.  Lives weren’t threatened by a deadly virus. This disruption of the status quo was led by a group of extraordinary individuals after Britain emerged from a horribly destructive 30 year war. New ideas threatened the religious belief system of Christians in England and Scotland as brilliant intellectuals and scientists shook the world with their writings and discoveries.  Individual liberty, freedom of thought, reason, and logic were celebrated and used to challenge just about everything.  This period of Enlightenment that begun in 17th century changed the world.
 

The cast of influential characters was wide, and the impact on scientific discovery in astronomy, medicine, the performing and fine arts, philosophy, government, democracy, law, literature, and education was monumental. Remarkable individuals from this time include Isaac Newton, Galieo Galilei, John Locke, Francis Bacon, Thomas Hobbes, Edmund Burke, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Voltaire, Denis Diderot, and many more. Prominent individuals in the specifically Scottish Enlightenment, which began in the mid 18th century, include Thomas Carlyle, Hugh Blair, David Hume, George Turnbull and of course, Adam Smith. The Scottish Enlightenment was a time of individual improvement, in a peaceful window of time where five universities flourished. Careers in the church, law, and trade, accompanied economic growth, and regular meetings of Societies and Clubs led to social experimentation and a multiplication of  ideas. In one of our recent Virtual Reading Groups, we read Leo Damosch's The Club. Read more about it- and see the AMA video we recorded with the author! (Learn more about ASW Reading Groups here.)
 

Our AdamSmithWorks collection of essays on the Scottish Enlightenment offers an opportunity for individual exploration as well as potential for shared discussion about the people and the lasting impact of this time and place where a disruption positively changed the world.