Bruce Buchan

How colonialism shaped the Scottish Enlightenment’s conception of race and humanity In the decades after 1750, an increasing number of former medical students from the University of Edinburgh construed humanity as a subject of both intellectual curiosity and colonial interest. They drew on a shared educational background, blending medicine with natural history and moral philosophy, in a range of encounters with non-European and Indigenous peoples across the globe whom they began to classify as races. Focusing on a surprising number of these understudied students, this book reveals the gradual predominance of race in Scottish Enlightenment thought. Teaching provided a toolbox of concepts and theories for students who went on to careers as military and naval surgeons, colonial administrators, and natural historians. While some, such as Mungo Park—who traveled in Africa—are well known, many others such as the long-term residents in the Russian Empire, Matthew Guthrie and his wife, Maria Guthrie, or the Caribbean botanist Alexander Anderson are less remembered. Among this group were those such as the Pacific traveler Archibald Menzies and the circumnavigator of Australia, Robert Brown, who are known primarily as botanists rather than as ethnographers. Together they formed a global network of colonial travelers and natural historians sharing a common educational background and a growing interest in race.

A book about how European colonists in Australia represented the Indigenous peoples they found there, and the tasks of governing them within the terms of Western political thought. It emphasises how the framework of ideas drawn from the traditions of Western political thought was employed in the imperial government of Indigenous peoples.

A book about how European colonists in Australia represented the Indigenous peoples they found there, and the tasks of governing them within the terms of Western political thought. It emphasises how the framework of ideas drawn from the traditions of Western political thought was employed in the imperial government of Indigenous peoples.

In Getting Down to Business Mervin Daub and Bruce Buchan trace the origins of this institution to the present day. In its first eighty years the School has grown and changed, greatly expanding the range of programs it offers to a dramatically increased number of undergraduates and graduates. A series of programs for executives and a productive and research-oriented faculty also demonstrate the growth and dynamic achievements of the School. This success is even more remarkable when it is recognized that it took place far from the commercial centres of Canada and the United States. Getting Down to Business is the fascinating story of Queen's School of Business, and of the men and women who recognized that there was a growing demand for professionally trained managers and ensured that Queen's would play a leading role in addressing that need.