The true story of a small fishing village in 19th century Scotland and the deadly storm that left tragedy in its wake is recounted in this "gripping read" ( Scotsman, UK).On October 14th, 1881, a severe windstorm struck the southeastern coast of Scotland, devastating fishing communities throughout the region. In all, 189 fishermen were lost in a single afternoon. 129 of them hailed from the village of Eyemouth. In Black Friday, Scottish historian ...

The forced removal of family farmers across the Scottish Lowlands in the 18th and 19th centuries is chronicled in this enlightening social history.The Scottish Agricultural Revolution came at great cost to the poor cottars and tenant farmers who were driven from their homes to make way for livestock and crops. The process of forced evictions through the Highlands known as the Highland Clearances is a well-documented episode of Scottish history. But the process actua...

Black Friday is the astonishing true story of a coastal community that lost 189 men in a single afternoon. Britain's worst fishing disaster decimated the coastal community of Eyemouth, yet is an almost forgotten part of the past.One hundred and twenty-five years on, this is the story of that storm, told through the accounts of fishermen at sea caught up in the maelstrom, of their families waiting anxiously for news, and of its historical context. At its heart is a gripping...

The Highland Clearances are a well-documented episode in Scotland's past but they were not unique. The process began in the Scottish Lowlands nearly a century before, when tens of thousands of people – significantly more than were later exiled form the Highlands – were moved from the land by estate owners who replaced them with livestock or enclosed fields of crops.These Clearances undeniably shaped the appearance of the Scottish landscape as it is today as they swept aside a tradi...

Words have always held great power in the Gaelic traditions of the Scottish Highlands: bardic poems bought immortality for their subjects; satires threatened to ruin reputations and cause physical injury; clan sagas recounted family origins and struggles for power; incantations invoked blessings and curses. Even in the present, Gaels strive to counteract centuries of misrepresentation of the Highlands as a backwater of barbarism without a valid story of its own to tell.Warriors...

An oral history by "Scotland's forgotten folklorist" whose tale inspired the Neil Gaiman novella The Truth Is a Cave in the Black Mountains ( The Spooky Isles).This is a fabulous treasury of legend and wonder—tales of monsters who dwell in lakes; of small people who trap humans in earthen mounds where time stands still; of dark, shapeshifting spirits whose cloak of human form is betrayed by the sand and shells which fall from their hair. In the ab...

Stories and science surrounding the beloved bat, from an ecologist who has dedicated his life to the curious creature.Few people realize how sophisticated and intelligent bats are. Merlin Tuttle knows, and he has stopped at nothing to find and protect them on every continent they inhabit. Sharing highlights from a lifetime of adventure and discovery, Tuttle takes us to the frontiers of bat research to show that frog-eating bats can identify frogs by their calls, th...

"This account of four west coast journeys in search of the remnants of the earliest Christian missionaries is intriguing . . . Moffat is an engaging guide." — The ScotsmanFourteen centuries ago, Irish saints brought the Word of God to the Hebrides and Scotland's Atlantic shore. These "white martyrs" sought solitude, remoteness, even harshness, in places apart from the world where they could fast, pray and move closer to an understanding of God: places where...

"A great book that summarizes pieces of Roman military history that are often not mentioned or difficult to find sources for . . . an entertaining read."— War History OnlineAs Rome grew from a small city state to the mightiest empire of the west, her dominion was contested not only by the civilizations of the Mediterranean, but also by the "barbarians"—the tribal peoples of Europe. The Celtic, the Spanish-Iberian and the Germanic tribes lacked the pomp and...

A look at Scotland before it was Scotland, with illustrations and photos included: "An outstanding book." — Current ArchaeologyEarly historic Scotland—from the fifth to the tenth century AD—was home to a variety of diverse peoples and cultures, all competing for land and supremacy. Yet by the eleventh century it had become a single, unified kingdom, known as Alba, under a stable and successful monarchy. How did this happen, and when?At the heart of t...

A thorough analysis of Allied actions after learning about the horrors of Nazi concentration camps—includes survivors' firsthand accounts.Why did they wait so long? Among the myriad questions of what the Allies could have done differently in World War II, understanding why it took them so long to respond to the horrors of the Nazi concentration camps—specifically Auschwitz—remains vital today.In Auschwitz and the Allies, Martin Gilbert presents a c...

The author of Elizabeth I's Secret Lover " places Ireland into a much wider context and takes it beyond the simplistic Catholic v Protestant dichotomy" ( The British Empire Blog ).Over the course of three decades in the late twentieth century, Northern Ireland was embroiled in the Troubles, a conflict characterized by the violent and bitter struggle between nationalists and unioni...