In the 20th century, a more critical view of Adam's work was taken. For example, Ian Hannah in "The Story of Scotland in Stone" (1934) found Adam to be "a rather ordinary classical architect". Arthur T. Bolton, in the introduction to his definitive work on Robert and James Adam (1922), dismissed the father's work as "heavy and ordinary", and a mere "compilation of ideas... from Vanbrugh and Gibbs to Kent". John Fleming lamented his "ad hoc improvisation from source books, improperly digested", and decided that he "cannot be allowed great distinction as an architect". John Summerson disregards Adam's work, in "Architecture in Britain, 1530–1830" (1953), as it does not fit into the English Palladian orthodoxy, although John Dunbar suggests that "he could express himself convincingly enough in that idiom", for instance at Haddo House. Dunbar found Adam's work "as remarkable for its eclecticism as for its unevenness of quality", and he went on to stress William Adam's "robustness and directness", and found these "appropriate to the artistic climate of North Britain". Gifford also stresses Adam's Scottish context, pointing out that Scotland was in many ways a foreign country during his working life, and indeed was a separate country to England until 1707. Adam should, he argues, be seen not as a provincial British architect, but as "the architect of Scotland".