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Very Short Introductions #197
Scotland: A Very Short Introduction
Scotland's past is too often seen through a film of myths and misconceptions. In this Very Short Introduction, Rab Houston explores the key themes from more than 1,000 years of Scotland's very real and very fascinating history. Covering everything from the Jacobites to devolution to the modern economy, this concise account presents a fully-integrated picture of Scottish society, culture, politics and religion. Houston examines a range of important subjects, including how an independent Scottish nation emerged in the Middle Ages, how it was irrevocably altered by Reformation, how links with England and economic change have affected Scotland, and how Scotland has in turn influenced the development of the modern world. The book shows as well why Scotland's history has made it distinct from England, both before and after Union, and why it has today arrived at a political, social and cultural watershed. Authoritative, lucid, and ranging widely over issues of environment, people, and
identity, this is Scotland's story without myths: an ideal introduction for those interested in the Scots, but also a balanced yet refreshing challenge to those who already feel at home in Scotland past and present.
About the Series: Combining authority with wit, accessibility, and style, Very Short Introductions offer an introduction to some of life's most interesting topics. Written by experts for the newcomer, they demonstrate the finest contemporary thinking about the central problems and issues in hundreds of key topics, from philosophy to Freud, quantum theory to Islam.
identity, this is Scotland's story without myths: an ideal introduction for those interested in the Scots, but also a balanced yet refreshing challenge to those who already feel at home in Scotland past and present.
About the Series: Combining authority with wit, accessibility, and style, Very Short Introductions offer an introduction to some of life's most interesting topics. Written by experts for the newcomer, they demonstrate the finest contemporary thinking about the central problems and issues in hundreds of key topics, from philosophy to Freud, quantum theory to Islam.
172 pages, Paperback
First published November 27, 2008
35 people are currently reading
485 people want to read
About the author
Rab Houston
12 booksRab Houston is a Professor of History at the University of St Andrews. He teaches principally English social history, c.1500-1800. He researches Scottish and English social history c.1450-1850 but has published in many areas of European social history including literacy, urbanisation, medical history and demography.
He is Scotland's only historian to be a Fellow of the Academia Europaea. He is married to a university manager. Similar to 'Bob', 'Rab' is a Scottish contraction of 'Robert'.
He is Scotland's only historian to be a Fellow of the Academia Europaea. He is married to a university manager. Similar to 'Bob', 'Rab' is a Scottish contraction of 'Robert'.
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Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews
April 2, 2019
After looking into various histories of Scotland, I settled on reading this as prep for a brief tour of Scotland. After just the first few chapters I knew I had chosen wisely. The not so subtle pro-SNP bias of the author notwithstanding, I found this 150 page summary of Scotland’s social, cultural and political history to be a lucid and highly readable introduction to the past and present state of Scotland, not just in terms of the union with England but also its role in the wider world. For me it was so comprehensive, in fact, that I came away from it primed and ready to discuss various aspects of Scottish history in some detail.
January 3, 2019
Read up to page 82. DNF. Way too much information crammed into this tiny book.
December 7, 2020
A bone dry take on one of the most wonderfully rich and interesting countries in the world (in my humble opinion). I never in my life thought I’d find myself bored reading about Scotland, but this author has managed to do what was once thought impossible.
For an informative, beautifully written, and hard to put down read on Scotland, I highly recommend “A History of Scotland” by Neil Oliver. This read is immensely more engaging, and it was written with warmth and palpable love for Scotland.
For an informative, beautifully written, and hard to put down read on Scotland, I highly recommend “A History of Scotland” by Neil Oliver. This read is immensely more engaging, and it was written with warmth and palpable love for Scotland.
May 12, 2019
Good introduction, even if there is a lot to digest in a short time.
August 16, 2015
Writing a short introduction on any large topic is tough, let alone writing one on a significant country such as Scotland. However, if good decisions are made on what to include, and what to omit, it is a possible task. That is where this book fails, and fails badly - Houston tried terribly hard to stuff in far too much information. Throughout the book, single paragraphs would include information across multiple centuries, when from one sentence to the next it was tough to understand which statistics applied to which time periods.
The book was written to a largely British audience. As an American living in Scotland two years, there were still ideas glossed over without explanation that made very little sense to me. Especially when discussing government.
The book just felt far too stuffed, and far too many topics were not given any room to breath. By the end of the book,
The book was written to a largely British audience. As an American living in Scotland two years, there were still ideas glossed over without explanation that made very little sense to me. Especially when discussing government.
The book just felt far too stuffed, and far too many topics were not given any room to breath. By the end of the book,
August 14, 2012
Really interesting overview, with really strong early chapters on religion and politics - just slightly let down by some questionable judgements in the culture chapter towards the end.
February 20, 2017
Rab Houston writes an excellent ‘very short introduction’ to his native homeland and subject matter. It may, at times, feel like a glorified visitor guide, but overall the historical explanation of all things Scotland is accessible and well argued. This short review discusses Houston’s own four main themes: the notable diversity within the Scottish population, Scottish civil society and its ability to hold together the previous theme, how the Middle Ages were a period of great monarchical nation-building in Scotland; each in a very brief summary. Then it turns to a more critical analysis of Houston's final theme: Scottishness and Britishness as a plurality of identities.
Houston’s discussion of the diversity of ancient Scotland refers to the early formative years of the kingdom, where at first it was the Catholic Church that spanned across the regional kingdoms. Early kings may have used this network and hierarchy in the gradual accretion of territory. Later ‘Scottish’ kings expanded into Lothian — held by Northumbria until 1018 — and later into the north and west, held by the Vikings for some time. As the kingdom was a stitching-together of many divisible regions, fortified only by religion and the monarchy itself, Houston notes it was the Declaration of Arbroath in 1320 that united the kingdom formally. He expands on this concept, noting that an important part of the success of the Scottish monarchy was its acceptance of regional differences within the kingdom, and their historical bases. Overall, as per Houston, the scale of diversity in ancient Scotland is impressive, considering the population and the land mass it inhabits.
This respect of the differences between regions is perhaps best articulated by Houston in his consideration of civil society. In Scotland governance was quite decentralized, and indeed not used to any interference from the central government, being led mostly by local authorities. It was indeed so important in society, that public issues widely regarded as important over the centuries, such as schooling — supplemented by voluntarism in such public forums as churches on Sundays — was greatly impacted by organized popular input and cooperation. Houston maintains that to this day, civil society is very much at the heart of the definition of modern Scottish identity.
Earlier manifestations of Scottish identity took place with the twelfth century emergence of the ‘kings of Scots’, while in the thirteenth century the borders of the kingdom began to be more defined. The author illustrates to the reader that it was Normanization that began the formation of a truly independent Scottish kingship — for it was the Wars of Independence and subsequent conflicts that forced the Scoto-Norman barons to define their loyalties and to stick with them. Robert the Bruce, the first post-Wars king, was able to utilize his victory against Plantagenet expansion campaigns to expand the power of his monarchy and legitimize it by attaching it to Scottish identity. Together with the Church, nationalist authorship and a strong legal regime, this monarchy is what Houston claims held Scotland together from the late Middle Ages. Feudalism was used to overlap royal-centralist interests with Gaelic traditions of clan society, in a personal nature, to create popular loyalty centred on the Crown and manifesting itself in commoner armies being formed in times of war. To quote Houston, “modern Scotland is solidly grounded on historical foundations and the continuity this provides helps in dealing constructively with change.”
The final and, perhaps, most significant theme in Scotland: A Very Short Introduction is how Scottishness and Britishness have developed into a pluralism of identities, with long histories of the former being built upon by the latter — and not necessarily replaced. To begin, Houston speaks of the ‘voluntary Normanization’ after the Conquest of England, beginning in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, creating a new nobility which had a salient set of identities. As discussed above, this formed into the kingdom of Scotland, but Houston does tell us with some fervour that he considers the Battle of Bannockburn in 1314 to be the most important battle in British history, because it “marked the end of any serious chance of [an English] ‘super-overlordship’ of Britain”; rather, it led to the independence of Scotland.
Yet other significant events are relevant to British history, including the growth of Protestantism in both England and Scotland. Yet here Houston draws the line, marking the division of the two forms: England's was moderate and very close to Catholicism, while to the north the Scots built up a Kirk based on Calvinism. These divisions were propagated in the 18th and 19th centuries with divisions and Schisms. Here, Kristen Post Walton illuminates on the subject, when she says religion in Scotland provided its own means for Scots in “articulating their sense of national identity.” However, she also notes that weakened the political ‘articulation’ of this nationalism, and made it almost exclusive to the Kirk for a long time.
Houston says this political articulation of nationalism was rather ambivalent about parliamentary union and its implications for royal succession, while at the same time other Scots were more concerned about the threat to Protestantism posed by Louis XIV and so saw union as a militarily wise arrangement. Incidentally, this relates directly to Jacobitism — where many Scots preferred the Stuarts, yet were still not too keen on Catholicism in the Lowlands. The disagreement came to its most famous climax at the battle of Culloden. Afterwards, Walton expands, the banning of all things relating to the old idea of the gaeltacht ironically allowed nationalist sentiment to grow through the rest of the century, transforming itself into a movement for its own preservation rather than explicit separation. As we are told in Scotland, economic advantage became widely apparent as a boon of Union and was indeed compounded by the growth of Britain over the next two centuries. Walton agrees: she argues that even at the time of the Union of the Crowns, many Scots saw the advantages to be had in union with its southern neighbour — though they maintained a stress on the independence of Scotland's internal affairs. Yet union still did not gain support until the dire economic situation just preceding it. Houston actually considers it “inconceivable” that Scotland could have prospered as much on its own outside union with England, and the access to colonial and domestic markets it entailed.
Sir Walter Scott was able to build on this perception of economic advantage, says Houston, and was able to eventually create a Scottishness that would both be acceptable to the Hanoverian establishment as well as protect it, encouraging his readers to see all of the benefits and to accept the new dynasty. Perhaps, here, Houston means to equate Scott with Whig historians. Colin Kidd notes that such Enlightenment scholarship reduced the historicity of Scotland’s founding sagas to rubble and dismisses their relevance.
Kidd continues by explicating how the “kitsch Gaelic identity” which emerged under the Hanovers was but a lap-dog to their interests, and in fact utterly failed the Scots in their efforts to restore their historical identity — and has instead held it back. Yet still they tried: Walton contends the very nature of the Union made Scots want to define their own identity as something unique to themselves, and the pursuit of this historical glory has been common for much of the past two centuries. Perhaps this was even in the Hanoverians’ favour, as per Kidd’s argument; Hearn tells of how London’s rule of Scotland has been likened to colonial rule, with even the head of the Scottish Office describing himself as akin to a colonial governor.
The expansion of the empire managed to sideline Scottish nationalism through to the twentieth century, yet Hearn says its events — war and depression — did not stop how nationalism was solidified by the discovery of North Sea oil in the ‘70s and the rejection of neoliberalism through the ‘90s. Houston speaks of how neoliberalism very much went against the centuries old traditions of Scottish civil society, and so created the nationalist divide in the late 20th century. Hearn agrees this dissatisfaction of British rule led to the revival of Scottish nationalism, and was aggravated by the perception of Scotland's role as a periphery state in union after the decline of empire and industry, which quickly revealed the nature of the relationship.
Despite all of this, Scotland is permeated with a more positive outlook. Houston proclaims that all of Scotland’s history is relevant, “ ... for as well as being Scottish, many Scots also feel British.” This statement is corroborated by David McCrone as he speaks of the lingering positive view of the identity of being British in general, with its associated history of Empire. Atsuko Ichijo also speaks to how nationalism and unionism have co-existed for much of modern history. In parallel with Hearn, the two authors note that the two sentiments together can be defined as ‘unionist nationalism,’ something that might have been put to good use in Houston’s examination of the concept.’
Houston ends his work with a mention of the contemporary open-endedness of Scottish identity within Britain. McCrone again elaborates: “It is, then, not a matter of choosing to be Scottish … over being British, of making up your political mind once and for all, but of recognising the complexity and inter-relationships of diverse territorial identities.”
The diversity of ancient and contemporary Scotland, how it has been held together by civil society, and how it had been built upon by the efforts of successive kings into a Scottish kingdom are well described and easily understood. In comparison of Houston’s discussion of the plurality of Scottish and British identities throughout his work, other authors were able to offer greater insight, though they do support Houston’s arguments. It seems apparent that such valuable information would have made an excellent contribution to expanding upon the work, even in a ‘very short introduction’ such as Scotland.
References:
Hearn, Jonathan. “Narrative, Agency, and Mood: On the Social Construction of National History in Scotland,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 44:4 (October 2002): 745-769.
Houston, Rab. Scotland: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2008.
Ichijo, Atsuko. “Entrenchment of unionist nationalism: devolution and the discourse of national identity in Scotland,” National Identities 14:1 (March 2012): 23-37.
Kidd, Colin. “Gaelic Antiquity and National Identity in Enlightenment Ireland and Scotland,” English Historical Review 109:434 (November 1994): 1197-1214.
McCrone, David. “Whatever Became of the British?” Political Quarterly 84:4 (2013):470-477.
Walton, Kristen Post. “Scottish nationalism before 1789: an ideology, a sentiment, or a creation?” International Social Science Review 82:3&4 (n.d.): 111-134.
Houston’s discussion of the diversity of ancient Scotland refers to the early formative years of the kingdom, where at first it was the Catholic Church that spanned across the regional kingdoms. Early kings may have used this network and hierarchy in the gradual accretion of territory. Later ‘Scottish’ kings expanded into Lothian — held by Northumbria until 1018 — and later into the north and west, held by the Vikings for some time. As the kingdom was a stitching-together of many divisible regions, fortified only by religion and the monarchy itself, Houston notes it was the Declaration of Arbroath in 1320 that united the kingdom formally. He expands on this concept, noting that an important part of the success of the Scottish monarchy was its acceptance of regional differences within the kingdom, and their historical bases. Overall, as per Houston, the scale of diversity in ancient Scotland is impressive, considering the population and the land mass it inhabits.
This respect of the differences between regions is perhaps best articulated by Houston in his consideration of civil society. In Scotland governance was quite decentralized, and indeed not used to any interference from the central government, being led mostly by local authorities. It was indeed so important in society, that public issues widely regarded as important over the centuries, such as schooling — supplemented by voluntarism in such public forums as churches on Sundays — was greatly impacted by organized popular input and cooperation. Houston maintains that to this day, civil society is very much at the heart of the definition of modern Scottish identity.
Earlier manifestations of Scottish identity took place with the twelfth century emergence of the ‘kings of Scots’, while in the thirteenth century the borders of the kingdom began to be more defined. The author illustrates to the reader that it was Normanization that began the formation of a truly independent Scottish kingship — for it was the Wars of Independence and subsequent conflicts that forced the Scoto-Norman barons to define their loyalties and to stick with them. Robert the Bruce, the first post-Wars king, was able to utilize his victory against Plantagenet expansion campaigns to expand the power of his monarchy and legitimize it by attaching it to Scottish identity. Together with the Church, nationalist authorship and a strong legal regime, this monarchy is what Houston claims held Scotland together from the late Middle Ages. Feudalism was used to overlap royal-centralist interests with Gaelic traditions of clan society, in a personal nature, to create popular loyalty centred on the Crown and manifesting itself in commoner armies being formed in times of war. To quote Houston, “modern Scotland is solidly grounded on historical foundations and the continuity this provides helps in dealing constructively with change.”
The final and, perhaps, most significant theme in Scotland: A Very Short Introduction is how Scottishness and Britishness have developed into a pluralism of identities, with long histories of the former being built upon by the latter — and not necessarily replaced. To begin, Houston speaks of the ‘voluntary Normanization’ after the Conquest of England, beginning in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, creating a new nobility which had a salient set of identities. As discussed above, this formed into the kingdom of Scotland, but Houston does tell us with some fervour that he considers the Battle of Bannockburn in 1314 to be the most important battle in British history, because it “marked the end of any serious chance of [an English] ‘super-overlordship’ of Britain”; rather, it led to the independence of Scotland.
Yet other significant events are relevant to British history, including the growth of Protestantism in both England and Scotland. Yet here Houston draws the line, marking the division of the two forms: England's was moderate and very close to Catholicism, while to the north the Scots built up a Kirk based on Calvinism. These divisions were propagated in the 18th and 19th centuries with divisions and Schisms. Here, Kristen Post Walton illuminates on the subject, when she says religion in Scotland provided its own means for Scots in “articulating their sense of national identity.” However, she also notes that weakened the political ‘articulation’ of this nationalism, and made it almost exclusive to the Kirk for a long time.
Houston says this political articulation of nationalism was rather ambivalent about parliamentary union and its implications for royal succession, while at the same time other Scots were more concerned about the threat to Protestantism posed by Louis XIV and so saw union as a militarily wise arrangement. Incidentally, this relates directly to Jacobitism — where many Scots preferred the Stuarts, yet were still not too keen on Catholicism in the Lowlands. The disagreement came to its most famous climax at the battle of Culloden. Afterwards, Walton expands, the banning of all things relating to the old idea of the gaeltacht ironically allowed nationalist sentiment to grow through the rest of the century, transforming itself into a movement for its own preservation rather than explicit separation. As we are told in Scotland, economic advantage became widely apparent as a boon of Union and was indeed compounded by the growth of Britain over the next two centuries. Walton agrees: she argues that even at the time of the Union of the Crowns, many Scots saw the advantages to be had in union with its southern neighbour — though they maintained a stress on the independence of Scotland's internal affairs. Yet union still did not gain support until the dire economic situation just preceding it. Houston actually considers it “inconceivable” that Scotland could have prospered as much on its own outside union with England, and the access to colonial and domestic markets it entailed.
Sir Walter Scott was able to build on this perception of economic advantage, says Houston, and was able to eventually create a Scottishness that would both be acceptable to the Hanoverian establishment as well as protect it, encouraging his readers to see all of the benefits and to accept the new dynasty. Perhaps, here, Houston means to equate Scott with Whig historians. Colin Kidd notes that such Enlightenment scholarship reduced the historicity of Scotland’s founding sagas to rubble and dismisses their relevance.
Kidd continues by explicating how the “kitsch Gaelic identity” which emerged under the Hanovers was but a lap-dog to their interests, and in fact utterly failed the Scots in their efforts to restore their historical identity — and has instead held it back. Yet still they tried: Walton contends the very nature of the Union made Scots want to define their own identity as something unique to themselves, and the pursuit of this historical glory has been common for much of the past two centuries. Perhaps this was even in the Hanoverians’ favour, as per Kidd’s argument; Hearn tells of how London’s rule of Scotland has been likened to colonial rule, with even the head of the Scottish Office describing himself as akin to a colonial governor.
The expansion of the empire managed to sideline Scottish nationalism through to the twentieth century, yet Hearn says its events — war and depression — did not stop how nationalism was solidified by the discovery of North Sea oil in the ‘70s and the rejection of neoliberalism through the ‘90s. Houston speaks of how neoliberalism very much went against the centuries old traditions of Scottish civil society, and so created the nationalist divide in the late 20th century. Hearn agrees this dissatisfaction of British rule led to the revival of Scottish nationalism, and was aggravated by the perception of Scotland's role as a periphery state in union after the decline of empire and industry, which quickly revealed the nature of the relationship.
Despite all of this, Scotland is permeated with a more positive outlook. Houston proclaims that all of Scotland’s history is relevant, “ ... for as well as being Scottish, many Scots also feel British.” This statement is corroborated by David McCrone as he speaks of the lingering positive view of the identity of being British in general, with its associated history of Empire. Atsuko Ichijo also speaks to how nationalism and unionism have co-existed for much of modern history. In parallel with Hearn, the two authors note that the two sentiments together can be defined as ‘unionist nationalism,’ something that might have been put to good use in Houston’s examination of the concept.’
Houston ends his work with a mention of the contemporary open-endedness of Scottish identity within Britain. McCrone again elaborates: “It is, then, not a matter of choosing to be Scottish … over being British, of making up your political mind once and for all, but of recognising the complexity and inter-relationships of diverse territorial identities.”
The diversity of ancient and contemporary Scotland, how it has been held together by civil society, and how it had been built upon by the efforts of successive kings into a Scottish kingdom are well described and easily understood. In comparison of Houston’s discussion of the plurality of Scottish and British identities throughout his work, other authors were able to offer greater insight, though they do support Houston’s arguments. It seems apparent that such valuable information would have made an excellent contribution to expanding upon the work, even in a ‘very short introduction’ such as Scotland.
References:
Hearn, Jonathan. “Narrative, Agency, and Mood: On the Social Construction of National History in Scotland,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 44:4 (October 2002): 745-769.
Houston, Rab. Scotland: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2008.
Ichijo, Atsuko. “Entrenchment of unionist nationalism: devolution and the discourse of national identity in Scotland,” National Identities 14:1 (March 2012): 23-37.
Kidd, Colin. “Gaelic Antiquity and National Identity in Enlightenment Ireland and Scotland,” English Historical Review 109:434 (November 1994): 1197-1214.
McCrone, David. “Whatever Became of the British?” Political Quarterly 84:4 (2013):470-477.
Walton, Kristen Post. “Scottish nationalism before 1789: an ideology, a sentiment, or a creation?” International Social Science Review 82:3&4 (n.d.): 111-134.
August 12, 2018
Among the several VSIs I’ve head and enjoyed, this was the densest, owing to having to cover so much ground. I probably would have been more satisfied with a more traditional treatment, rather than a brief one - the brevity made some of the import of what I was reading hard to discern. Granted I came to Houston’s book with no real familiarity with Scottish history. Nevertheless, I came away with a better understanding than I had and am excited to visit Scotland in the flesh.
November 25, 2023
It could have used a tad more introductory thoughts, and a bit better organization to make the incredible amount of information actually useful for the reader at the intro level. But for someone a bit past that level who’s interested in a very short deeper dive on Scotland this thing is incredible. It really dives in on just about everything you could want. Politics, linguistics, religion, economics, environment. A real treat.
March 2, 2019
Dull and dense writing with little senes of organization. I understand that it is a difficult task to write the history of a nation, especially one with such an expansive history, but there seemed to be no love or care from the author.
May 24, 2017
Good information about Scottish history and culture divided up into topical chapters. This was much more interesting to read than just a typical history lesson.
June 9, 2017
Dry and not engagingly written, but a useful and quick intro before a visit to Scotland.
July 23, 2018
A little bit of everything is included in this very short introduction. History, culture, society. A perfect start.
May 26, 2020
very interesting and he clearly loves scotland but dry. and i wanted more about the scottish enlightenment.
March 10, 2022
Been a while since I read something from this series. Always dense and academic, but also providing the broad structure to understand a topic.
August 18, 2022
A quick primer with some interesting points to make, there are obviously more in-depth works from which to gain an overview of Scotland's modern history, but this one doesn't do a bad job. For anyone not yet clear on the distinction between England, Great Britain and the United Kingdom, this is not a bad place to tease apart these particular strands, as well as the (latter-day) rise of the independence movement. Plenty of quibbles could be made as to what ended up in the book, but as a springboard to then move into more involved works, it is certainly worth a read.
July 5, 2011
This as one of the better of the Very Short Introduction series. While it appears that the author was writing to a predominantly British audience with some familiarity and vested interest in the subject, he did a good job of touching on important parts of a subject that obviously has a great deal of depth. An enjoyable overview of Scottish history and culture.
February 19, 2009
This book was a well-organized, brief overview of Scottish history. The author fit a lot into a small book! I especially liked learning more about the Highlands and Lowlands, the language and culture of Scotland. I think it served its purpose well.
March 23, 2015
This was interesting but not very readable. I think this may be due to the constraints on writing a tiny book on a huge subject. I wish it flowed better.
I did learn several things though! It was definitely worth reading a little piece at a time, instead of continuously.
I did learn several things though! It was definitely worth reading a little piece at a time, instead of continuously.
November 19, 2019
The book is as described. It is a short intro to the history of politics, religion, literature, and culture of Scotland. It's not a travel guide (nor is it meant to be), but it does provide an introduction to, well, everything.
June 23, 2015
Another engaging and incisive introduction to this most singular realm
December 11, 2016
Chapter 1: Politics and government
Chapter 2: Religion
Chapter 3: Education
Chapter 4: Society
Chapter 5: Economy and environment
Chapter 6: Scotland and the wider world
Chapter 7: Culture
Chapter 2: Religion
Chapter 3: Education
Chapter 4: Society
Chapter 5: Economy and environment
Chapter 6: Scotland and the wider world
Chapter 7: Culture
Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews