Despite the substantial historiography of policing in the British Isles, little scholarly attention has been directed at Scotland's experience. Whilst there have been good local studies, stressing the individual nature of the development of each burgh's force, there is a want of a broader framework showing national trends within which these local variations may be understood. The main problem, perhaps, in explaining this neglect is that the first parliamentary inquiry relating to Scottish policing was not held until 1852–3; before this date, one must turn to fragmented local source material. Dr Barrie's impressive bibliography reflects the scale of the task which this has necessitated. Barrie has supplemented his doctoral work on Glasgow, which provides his strongest case study, with additional research into several other burghs including Aberdeen, Edinburgh, Dundee and a number of small burghs of barony and regality, producing a broad study of the developments in Scotland's policing, in the contexts of civic tradition and urban governance.

Scotland's Enlightenment thinkers, Barrie argues, influenced a distinct culture of urban governance and responsibility, and broad conceptions of police including civil administration, such as lighting and sweeping, which, after 1835, reformed English municipal corporations would have administered. This fostered a civic culture which called for participation, self-direction and local accountability. Accordingly, representative bodies held favour late into the nineteenth century. The new civil society was the space in which thinking about the creation and reform of policing took place. Philosophers such as Hume, Smith and Ferguson continued to influence propertied men and lawyers, and therefore public men. This was especially the case in Edinburgh, owing to the prevalence of lawyers. The Enlightenment raised expectations of governance, particularly in refined, commercial centres, and instilled the notion that police commissions ought to be democratic and representative.

Barrie is aware of the difficulties in providing conclusive proof, but the strongest link between Enlightenment and policing is found in his Glasgow study. Former magistrate Colquhoun's work bore ‘the hallmark of eighteenth-century Scottish Enlightenment thought’: ideas of ‘improvement’ and promoting the ‘common good’ (pp. 76–7). Ferguson's argument that propertied men should engage in public life explains the importance attached to accountability in police commissions. Rather than becoming embroiled in class as an analytical category, occupational groupings such as ‘merchant/manufacturer’ are used to analyse the social composition of police commissions. The main actors are ‘the middle ranks’, not classes, or, in the language of the Enlightenment, propertied men.

Barrie presents a persuasive argument for the rejection of the normativity of the English metropolitan policing model and the significance of the Metropolitan Police Act, emphasizing instead Scottish innovation, especially in commercial and manufacturing centres such as Glasgow, and the evolutionary character of policing in smaller burghs. The system of dual administration through both town council and police commission, which was established in many burghs, indicated contested power relations. The popular support for these new police commissions suggests a lack of faith in town councils rather than the old watching systems. The old system could be responsive and responsible, yet low prosecution rates fell short of the expectations of urban governance which the Enlightenment had raised.

The modernization of policing, the slow rise of professional, uniformed, paid officers, and collective responsibility, rather than individual service to the community, is well charted. The driving force was largely local, and not always strictly concerned with crime: rather than emulating London, the desire was to compete with neighbours. London provided permissive legislation, local acts and funding for approved regimes. Barrie's point that the issue here was standardization, not quality, is born from the geographical width of his enquiry. Valuable data on the constitutional structure and social character of the various police bodies are given in a series of tables, providing an overview of the varying structures of different burghs, and demonstrating that there are no especial chronological trends. In short the story of urban policing was one very much dictated by each burgh's individual circumstances. Moreover, city experiences are complemented with some discussion of county policing. In the middle of the century, rural policing was generally in a better state in terms of crime prevention; however, the Scottish urban-governance meaning of policing did not translate to the extra-urban context.

By exploiting varied and rich seams of records, this study provides a definitive framework, which no future study of either Scottish policing or urban governance in this period will be able to ignore. Furthermore this exposition of applied Enlightenment philosophy adds considerably to our understanding of Scottish urban governance and why it was so distinctive.