Browse

This book considers the politics of patronage appointments at the universities in Glasgow, Edinburgh, and St Andrews. The book explores the ways in which 388 men secured posts in three Scottish universities between 1690 and 1806; from the purge following the Revolution of 1688 to the end of Henry Dundas's political career. Most professors were political appointees vetted and supported by political factions and their leaders. This study explores the improving agenda of political patrons and of those they served and relates this to the Scottish Enlightenment. The book argues that what was happening in Scotland was also occurring in other parts of Europe where, in relatively autonomous localities, elite patrons also shaped things as they wished them to be. The role of patronage in the Enlightenment is essential to any understanding of its origins and course. This book is based on much archival study and adds substantially to what is known about the Scottish professorial during the period.

This is the first modern book-length study of the case of Thomas Aikenhead, the sometime University of Edinburgh student who in 1697 earned the unfortunate distinction of being the last person executed for blasphemy in Britain. Taking a micro-historical approach, the book uses the Aikenhead case to open a window into the world of Edinburgh, Scotland and Britain in its transition from the confessional era of the Reformation and the covenants, which placed high emphasis on the defence of orthodox belief, to the polite, literary world of the Enlightenment, of which Edinburgh would become a major centre. The book traces the roots of the Aikenhead case in seventeenth-century Scotland and the law of blasphemy which was evolving in response to the new intellectual currents of biblical criticism and deism. The author analyzes Aikenhead's trial and the Scottish government's decision to uphold the sentence of hanging. Finally, he details the debate engendered by the execution, carried out in a public sphere of print media encompassing both Scotland and England. Aikenhead's case became a media event which highlighted the intellectual and cultural divisions within Britain at the end of the seventeenth century.

This book traces the evolution of Dundee from wealthy Renaissance port — and second city of Scotland — to the point where it became an international centre of textile manufacturing and trade. It shows how, despite being at the heart of key events in Scottish history, Dundee has remained invisible behind its later Victorian mask. To allow the true nature of the city to come to light, it examines Dundee thoroughly in a rich mixture of urban, economic, political, social, medical, cultural, imperial, maritime, and architectural histories. It contains over one hundred specially selected illustrations, many of which have never been seen before. These are integral to the story it tells and are used to explain and illuminate Dundee's history. The book sets out to re-establish Dundee's rightful place in European history and to offer Scots a different perspective on their national history.

This book provides a new ‘global’ history of the Scottish city of Dundee in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It focuses on the question ‘How did the people of Dundee respond to the challenge of being the most economically globalised city in the world in the years before the First World War?’ It shows how the answer to this question is complicated by the fact that Dundee's jute industry was in competition with the jute industry of Calcutta. It describes how Dundee, dubbed, Juteopolis, had to cope not only with low-wage competition from abroad, but also with the political reality that, for decision-makers in London, the fate of the British Empire in India was far more important than the economic well-being of a small Scottish city. It shows how these issues were understood by ordinary Dundonians, as well as how they were understood by politicians and policy-makers. By combining economic, political, and social history, the book highlights the significance of empire for British policy-making and shows how the challenges historically posed by globalisation can be best analysed.

This book presents a provocative and timely reconsideration of modern Scottish literature in the light of ecological thought. The book demonstrates how successive generations of Scottish writers have both reflected on and contributed to the development of international ecological theory and philosophy. Provocative re-readings of works by authors including Robert Louis Stevenson, John Muir, Nan Shepherd, John Burnside, Kathleen Jamie, and George Mackay Brown demonstrate the significance of ecological thought across the spectrum of Scottish literary culture. This book traces the influence of ecology as a scientific, philosophical, and political concept in the work of these and other writers and in doing so presents an original outlook on Scottish literature from the mid-nineteenth century to the present. In this age of environmental crisis, the book reveals a heritage of ecological thought which should be recognised as of vital relevance both to Scottish literary culture and to the wider field of green studies.

The Edinburgh Festival – and the Fringe that it inspired – has been the hub for numerous ‘culture wars ’ since its inception in 1947. This book is the first major study of the origins and development of this leading annual arts extravaganza, examining a moving stage of debate on such issues as the place of culture in society, the practice and significance of the arts, censorship, the role of organised religion, and the meanings of morality. From the beginning, the Edinburgh Festival sought to use culture to bolster European civilisation. For this it was considered for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1952. Culture was seen by churches as a ‘weapon of enlightenment’, by the labour movement as a ‘weapon in the struggle’, and by the new generation of artistic entrepreneurs coming to the fore in the 1960s as a means of challenge and provocation. High-profile controversies resulted, such as the nudity trial of 1963 and the scandal over a play about bestiality in 1967. These ideas – conservative and liberal, elite and diverse, traditional and avant-garde – have all clashed every August in Edinburgh, making the festivals an effective lens for exploring major changes in culture and society in post-war Britain.

This book examines how participation in the British Empire shaped constructions of Scottish national identity. It makes an important contribution to our understanding of 19th-century and early 20th-century Scottish society through its original use of a wide range of primary sources, and covers new ground in its assessment of the impact of empire at home. The author shows how, in the course of the 19th century, Scots acquired knowledge of empire and voiced opinions on imperial administration and on imperialism itself through philanthropic and religious, learned and scientific, and imperial propagandist activities. She explores the role that the foreign mission movement of the leading Presbyterian churches played in creating a vision of empire. And, focusing on Edinburgh as a case study, she discusses the social basis of support for the movement, including the increasingly prominent role played by women. Through analysing writings by and about missionaries in the missionary and secular press, this book asks how the foreign mission movement came to be a source of national pride, and provides new insights into the shaping of Scottish national identity and its relationship to the concept of Britishness.

This book examines the climatic and economic origins of the last national famine to occur in Scotland, the nature and extent of the crisis which ensued and what the impact of the famine was upon the population in demographic, economic and social terms. Current published knowledge about the causes, extent and impact of the famine in Scotland is limited and many conclusions have been speculative in the absence of extensive research. Despite the critical importance of this crisis, one of the four disasters of the 1690s, which are widely acknowledged to have contributed to the economic arguments in favour of the Union of the Parliaments in 1707, the topic has been largely neglected and even underplayed by historians. This book studies the famine, providing a unique scholarly examination of the causes, course, characteristics and consequences of the crisis. A comprehensive study of agricultural, climatic, economic, social and demographic issues, the book seeks to establish answers to the fundamental question concerning the event. How serious was it? Using detailed statistical and qualitative analysis, it discusses the regional factors that defined the famine, the impact on the population, and the interconnected causes of this traumatic event.

This book commemorates the five-hundredth anniversary of The Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh. Founded in 1505 it has survived, with difficulty at times, to become one of the leading surgical corporations in Britain. The original Charter, or Seal of Cause, set out guidelines for the operation of the Incorporation of Barbers and Surgeons, in particular the requirement to study anatomy and the need for examination at the end of apprenticeship in order to ensure that master surgeons were as well trained as they could be at that time. These same guidelines still influence the aims and objectives of the Royal College of Surgeons, though manifest in very different ways in an age of technology and government regulation of surgical training. The book charts the progress of the institution through five hundred years of change, both in the College itself and in the external local, national, and international contexts. The Incorporation began with very local horizons; it now has a global outlook, with some 17,000 Fellows and Members worldwide, and this history aims to explain and account for the many influences that shaped the College into what it is today.

An historically and critically sound — and contemporary — evaluation of tartan and tartanry based on proper contextualisation and coherent analysis, this critical study of one of the more controversial aspects of recent debates on Scottish culture draws together contributions from leading researchers in a wide variety of disciplines, resulting in a highly accessible yet authoritative volume. This book, like tartan, weaves together two strands. The first, like a warp, considers the significance of tartan in Scottish history and culture during the last four centuries, including tartan's role in the development of diaspora identities in North America. The second, like a weft, considers the place of tartan and rise of tartanry in the national and international representations of Scottishness, including heritage, historical myth-making, popular culture, music hall, literature, film, comedy, rock and pop music, sport, and ‘high’ culture. This book offers fresh insight into and new perspectives on key cultural phenomena, from the iconic role of the Scottish regiments to the role of tartan in rock music. It argues that tartan may be fun, but it also plays a wide range of fascinating, important, and valuable roles in Scottish and international culture.