Patrick Geddes’s Intellectual Origins

Patrick Geddes is one of Scotland’s most remarkable thinkers of the late-nineteenth century. His environmental and cultural message endures today, yet the distinctively Scottish context to his thinking has not been properly acknowledged. This book situates Geddes within his own intellectual background (described by George Davie as ‘the democratic intellect’) and explores the relevance of that background to Geddes’s substantial national and international achievements across a truly impressive range of disciplines. Key Features: Explores Patrick Geddes Scottish intellectual background in depth for the first time; Highlights Geddes’s insistence on the importance of arts to sciences and vice versa, and the distinctively Scottish context of this approach; Considers the interdisciplinary achievements of Geddes in Edinburgh, Dundee, Paris, London and India; Pays particular attention to his leadership of the Celtic Revival both from a Scottish perspective and with respect to international links, in particular with Indian cultural revivalists such as Ananda Coomaraswamy.

Table of Contents:
Chapter 1 Patrick Geddes and the Scottish Intellectual TraditionA generalist among generalists Disciplines and interdisciplinarity Visual thinking and interdisciplinarity Presbyterianism and interdisciplinarity Art and scienceChapter 2 Geography, History and PlaceBallater and Perth The Black Watch Garden and world Dundee, Edinburgh and London France and MexicoChapter 3 Arts, Crafts and Social ReformEdinburgh in the 1880s The Edinburgh Social Union James Mavor and The Scottish Arts Review The Arts and Crafts Congress of 1889Chapter 4 Patrick Geddes, D’Arcy Thompson and the Early Years of University College DundeeThe Dundee Naturalists’ Society Patronage for a ProfessorChapter 5 Education, Anarchism and Celtic Revival in EdinburghUniversity Hall: buildings as interdisciplinary educationA party with KropotkinThe New EvergreenChapter 6 Manifestos in Word and ImageThe murals of Ramsay Garden The Evergreen: A Northern SeasonalChapter 7 Models of CelticismThe Celtic Library William Sharp and Alexander CarmichaelChapter 8 Interdisciplinarity and Cultural RevivalAn international summer meeting The Outlook Tower as generalist collegeChapter 9 Paris 1900: Local Revival as Global ProjectThe Paris Universal Exhibition Looking to India: Geddes, Vivekananda and NiveditaChapter 10 City Development as Interdisciplinary ProjectThe Dunfermline Plan: institutes of science, history and artCities in evolutionChapter 11 Ecological Research in DundeeEcology as a science: Geddes’s students and Bartholomew’s mapping The British Association Meeting of 1912Chapter 12 Dramatising the Past and Informing the FutureMasques of learning Saint Columba as point of reference Coomaraswamy, Indian art, and Celticism Encyclopaedias and colleges Publishing and the masquesChapter 13 Looking EastBaha’ism and Theosophy Celtic revival and Bengali revival Scottish interdisciplinarity in Indian reflection Sunwise turn and dance of ShivaChapter 14 A Farewell LectureMoving on from DundeeAn Italian codaAppendix 1 Patrick Geddes: a visual primer in ten imagesAppendix 2 List of Murdo Macdonald’s writings about Patrick Geddes and his milieu

About the Author :
Murdo Macdonald is Emeritus Professor of History of Scottish Art at the University of Dundee. He was editor of Edinburgh Review from 1990-1994. He is author of Scottish Art in Thames and Hudson’s World of Art series.

Review :
Superb new study of Geddes. Very well researched, drawing on new material as well as earlier work. Detailed notes will be extremely useful to other researchers. And written in a clear accessible style - unlike some academic books. Strongly recommended whatever aspect of Geddes's work is of most interest - biology, ecology, town planning, environmental improvement, cultural renewal, university education. A brilliant introduction to Geddes and his world. ...stresses Geddes’s internationalism; with other early 20th-century thinkers he shared an intellectual project of cultural nationalism as a basis for cooperation. This definitive account illuminates Geddes the man, the thinker and the activist. Murdo Macdonald deals with the remarkable range of Geddes’s ideas – in science, ecology, culture, history, town planning, and education. Professor Macdonald’s own breadth and depth of scholarship is admirably matched to the richness of his subject. The book is well-written and scholarly, without being abstractly theoretical. The influence of Geddes radiated in multiple disciplinary directions, and he motivated his co-workers and students alike to push back the boundaries of contemporary thinking in ways that we are still discovering […] I thought that I knew about the life of Patrick Geddes, but I discovered in this book some lovely anecdotes that illustrate his personality quirks and his almost casual genius. I have only ever found a few biographies that actually leave the reader with a wish to befriend the subject, but this book is different. This book should be read as much for its insights into turn-of-the-century Scottish society as for the biography, and I am left wishing that I had been acquainted with Patrick Geddes. Patrick Geddes, nearly 90 years after his death, does indeed speak to us now with urgency and, as importantly, with hope... Macdonald's study could hardly be improved on as a starting-point for further exploration of Geddes's multi-channelled mind. It draws together a mass of interconnected information about him and his associates, creating a fascinating and in places rather beautiful web. Superb and scholarly. The fine new book, Patrick Geddes’s Intellectual Origins… stresses Geddes’s interdisciplinary approach to knowledge.