[ConservativeDude]

I got into this conversation late. Sorry.

The contribution of the Greeks to what we are today should not be dismissed. The Scots are incredibly important to America, for sure...but the superlatives that are thrown around sometimes are not all that helpful. Scotland is not the most important. It's important. But it's not the mostest importantest of them all.

[wideawake]

The interesting thing about Scotland is that in the century following the Act Of Union there was a Scottish Renaissance that produced its finest poet (Burns), one of the world's greatest economists (Adam Smith), one of history's key engineers (James Watt), one of the world's finest biographers (James Boswell), and some of the most influential philosophers (Francis Hutcheson, David Hume).

All of this intellectual ferment happened in and around Edinburgh and Glasgow, cities of maybe 50,000 people each.