The Scottish Enlightenment in Edinburgh

In the clubs, taverns and university of 18th-century Edinburgh, thinkers such as David Hume, Adam Smith, Joseph Black and James Hutton reshaped philosophy, economics, chemistry and geology. Smith's Wealth of Nations founded modern economics, and Hutton's reading of the rocks on Salisbury Crags pointed to the immense age of the Earth. The first Encyclopaedia Britannica was published in the city.