Capital of the Mind

This “elegant portrait of Edinburgh in the age of Enlightenment” reveals a thriving city of artists, architects, scientists, and other pioneers ( Times Literary Supplement ). In the early eighteenth century, Edinburgh, Scotland, was a filthy backwater town synonymous with poverty and disease. Yet by century’s end, it had become the marvel of modern Europe, home to the finest minds of the day and their breathtaking innovations in architecture, politics, science, the arts, and economics—all of whi