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Recently rediscovered and reassessed as a crucial figure of the Scottish Enlightenment, John Millar (1735-1801) is now commonly identified as the pioneer of sociology. Further, his exploration of the importance of the past for understanding present social forms, such as government, has been viewed as anticipating the historical materialism of Marx. As Crown Chair of civil law at Glasgow for most of his life, he numbered among his students many who later came to hold the highest positions in law, parliament and the royal councils. Two of Scotland's most illustrious intellectuals, David Hume and Adam Smith, entrusted their nephews to his teaching. Millar himself was the most distinguished pupil of Adam Smith and was tutored by Henry Home, Lord Kames. He is described by Smith's biographer, John Rae, as 'the most effective and influential apostle of Liberalism in Scotland in that age' and Charles Camic identifies Millar as being one of the five men whose works 'define the cultural change represented by the term Enlightenment' (the others being Ferguson, Hume, Robertson, and Smith). An Historical View earned Millar high acclaim on its first publication in 1787. This, the third edition, published posthumously, is greatly expanded with two volumes of material entrusted by Millar to his executors on his death-bed. 'these treatises contained such ingenious disquisitions on the rise of the influence of the Crown, and on the effects of extended commerce in giving birth to a spirit of independence in the people; they exhibited so animated a sketch of the changes produced by refinement on national character, and of the natural progress of poetical composition; that we thought, we should be doing injustice to the memory of our Friend, by witholding them from the world.' - John Craig in his Memoir of Millar His account of the period from the House of Stewart to the Revolution is often in firm opposition to the Toryism of Hume's history, but, significantly, it is this work that has since been described as 'the closest approximation to economic history amongst all the writings of the Scottish Enlightenment' (Professor D. C. Coleman, History and the Economic Past, 1987). Above all, the work of Millar is now acknowledged as providing a crucial bridge between the social thought of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

Constitutional history --- Great Britain --- Politics and government.

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Napoleon --- Great Britain --- Politics and government

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Europe -- Politics and government -- 1789-1815

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United States --- Politics and government --- 1801-1809

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Covers part of the reign of William III, and the first Partition Treaty with France (1698). House of Commons, Journals. Originally published by His Majesty's Stationery Office, London, 1803. This free content was digitised by double rekeying. All rights reserved.

Great Britain. --- Records and correspondence --- Great Britain --- Politics and government