Social and economic changes included an increase in production of food and raw materials, in turn sustaining the remarkable growth of towns and cities over this period. However, in the folk memory of Scotland the social and cultural costs of the revolution loom much larger: the loss of land for many thousands of families; the rise of individualism and the decline of neighborhood; the death of old rural societies which had formed Scotland's character for many generations. The drama and trag...

The Scottish Nation examines the social, political, religious and economic factors that have shaped modern Scotland. Drawing on extensive research and exploring everything from the high politics of the devolved parliament to the everyday effects of huge and growing levels of social inequality, Devine places Scotland firmly within an international context and provides a key focus for the ongoing debate regarding Scotland's future.

'A superb book ... Anybody interested in Scottish history needs to read it' Andrew Marr, Sunday TimesEighteenth-century Scotland is famed for generating many of the enlightened ideas which helped to shape the modern world. But there was in the same period another side to the history of the nation. Many of Scotland's people were subjected to coercive and sometimes violent change, as traditional ways of life were overturned by the 'rational'...

SPECTATOR, NEW STATESMAN, SCOTLAND ON SUNDAY and THE HERALD BOOKS OF THE YEARThe Scots are one of the world's greatest nations of emigrants. For centuries, untold numbers of men, women and children have sought their fortunes in every conceivable walk of life and in every imaginable climate across the British Empire, the United States and elsewhere, from finance to industry, philosophy to politics.To the Ends of the Earth puts this extraordinary epi...

Ain't nothing funny about being in prison. There is, however, plenty of funny things going on in the prisons. And, there is more non-sense going on in the legal sector of our goverment. I wanted to provide the readers with some real and cold facts about prison and our legal system; what better way to share this knowledge then in a way that people can have a laugh and get information at the same time. This books will have you laughing about the guards, the gays, churchgoers, and have you th...

There can be no relationship in Europe's history more creative, significant, vexed and uneasy than that between Scotland and England. From the Middle Ages onwards the island of Britain has been shaped by the unique dynamic between Edinburgh and London, exchanging inhabitants, monarchs, money and ideas, sometimes in a spirit of friendship and at others in a spirit of murderous dislike.Tom Devine's seminal new book explores this extraordinary history in all its ambiguity, from the se...

A risk worth taking for a love worth living.Ruby Vasilaki’s world has been turned upside down—more than once. Abandoned by her mother, she was taken in by her grandparents after her father’s untimely death. Raised under the shelter of their love, Ruby is ready to take on the world and moves across the country to pursue her dreams. She finds Vander Vitalis instead. Vander, who makes her laugh, who accepts her for who she is, who loves her.But the wh...

National Bestseller: An "astute and riveting" novel of a Dutch teenager thrust into the dangers and moral perils of his country's Nazi occupation ( The New York Times).In the summer of 1939, fourteen-year-old Jacob Koopman and his older brother, Edwin, enjoy lives of prosperity and quiet contentment. Many of the residents in their small Dutch town have some connection to the Koopman lightbulb factory, and locals hold the family in high esteem.On days...

An account of the last three hundred years of Scottish history offers a look at Scottish identity and culture.

This book brings to life for the first time the remarkable story of James Taylor, ‘father of the Ceylon tea enterprise’ in the nineteenth century. Publicly celebrated in Sri Lanka for his efforts in transforming the country’s economy and shaping the world’s drinking habits, Taylor died in disgrace and remains unknown to the present day in his native Scotland. Using a unique archive of Taylor’s letters written over a forty-year period, Angela McCarthy and Tom Devine provide an unusually det...

Over the last three decades major advances in research and scholarship have transformed understanding of the Scottish past. In this landmark study some of the most eminent writers on the subject, together with emerging new talents, have combined to produce a large-scale volume which reconsiders in fresh and illuminating ways the classic themes of the nation's history since the sixteenth century as well as a number of new topics which are only now receiving detailed attention. Such major th...