The thesis we put forward in the present study, is that Robert Burns is, among modern poets, not only one of the very few truly original artists and teachers in a European language, but one of the most principal advocates of the ideas of Man, identified with the American Revolution of 1776.
The main novelty of this study, is that we have set out to show how Robert Burns emerged from a network associated with the person of the American statesman Benjamin Franklin, and how very directly involved was Franklin himself, in the various schemes crowned with success, to build up from nothing, the infrastructure and industry of the British Isles. Far from being the jaded, irresponsible rabble-rouser and womaniser one reads about in English history books, Franklin spearheaded the last serious attempt to bring forth a politically mature population in the British Isles, by leading them to master new technologies and new branches of science.
The study is the work of an American, Mark Calney, of California. It would be wrong, therefore, for us to presume, what may be the constitutional, the political future, of those nations of Scotland, England, Wales, and the north counties of Ireland, which presently form part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain. However, we have used the “British”, to refer specifically, to matters pertaining to policies issuing from the institutions of Great Britain, as opposed to interests of Scotland, Ireland, et al. As British policy over the two centuries since the Acts of Union of 1707 and 1800, has been almost without exception, dominated by the rentier-finance interests of the House of Windsor and her allies among the more ancient noble families both on the islands, and broad, the term “British” as used here, is not only historically precise, it is also not necessarily flattering.