Increasing numbers of scholars have recognized Ferguson's contribution to Enlightenment thinking, but no collections of scholarly essays have been devoted to him. In this, the first of two related monographs, essays range across all of Ferguson's works to investigate his engagement with contemporary events and his contributions to our understanding of history and human action. Unique among the leading figures of the Scottish Enlightenment, Ferguson saw two eighteenth-century revolutions, the American and the French. On these and on many other important contemporary subjects, the views he expressed helped shape public opinion. But his work here also extends back to Roman times, about which he drew comparisons with the society of his day. As shown in these essays, he not only offered his thoughts on and described history, he investigated the nature of history itself.
