High above the mountaintops on the Isle of Mull, a huge bird is soaring. Its all-encompassing gaze records people in its Hebridean territory far below, but they are of no interest. The eagle is about its business: concentrating on the deer and fidgety hares out grazing in the morning sun, the urgent push of thermals beneath its wings, a threatening weather front way out at sea, and the restless chick back in its eyrie. This is Mull in its glory. This is what the excited, watching people have travelled so far to witness. They train their binoculars and admire, perhaps envy, the eagle with its vast freedom, knowing that such a self-willed being is part of another world – almost. This book guides the reader through that world. With superb illustrations and illuminating text, we are led to the wild side of Mull. Every facet of the island’s natural history is considered, its diverse species and many stories – past, present and future. Along the way we are reminded that wildness is not somehow separate from the human world but influenced, and shared, by nature and people together. Here is the tale of a precious and unique place, a seaborne landscape that displays an uncommon biodiversity and rare wildlife experiences, although today it also faces its greatest challenges. Most of all, this book is testimony to the power of wild places and the duty we have to learn from and protect them.

This is the story of a Scottish island as it has never been told before. This book includes the stories of the landlords, tacksmen, cottars and others who actually lived on or visted the island of Mull.

John Bannerman (1932-2008) saw the history of Scotland from a Gaelic perspective, and his outstanding scholarship made that perspective impossible to ignore. As a historian, his natural home was the era between the Romans and the twelfth century when the Scottish kingdom first began to take shape, but he also wrote extensively on the MacDonald Lordship of the Isles in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, while his work on the Beatons, the notable Gaelic medical kindred, reached into the early eighteenth century. Across this long millennium, Bannerman ranged and wrote with authority and insight on what he termed the 'kin-based society', with special emphasis upon its church and culture, and its relationship with Ireland. This collection opens with Bannerman's ground-breaking and hugely influential edition and discussion of Senchus fer nAlban ('The History of the Men of Scotland'), which featured in his Studies in the History of Dalriada (1974), now long out of print. To this have been added all of his published essays, plus an essay-length study of the Lordship of the Isles which first featured as an appendix in Late Medieval Monumental Sculpture in the West Highlands (1977). The book will be of interest to anyone who wants to know more about the Gaelic dimension to Scotland's past and present.

This is a comprehensive guide to walking on Scotland's Isle of Mull and the neighbouring islands of Ulva, Gometra, Iona and Erraid, providing 47 routes ranging between 3 and 14 miles. Offering routes for walkers of all abilities, the guide features a mix of long and short circuits alongside more demanding mountain traverses. Although challenging, these traverses involve few technical difficulties and are hugely rewarding for properly equipped and experienced walkers. Suitable for year-round walking, most visitors will stay in the main settlement of Tobermory, but Dervaig, Salen, Craignure and Bunessan also offer services and accommodation options. For each of the 47 routes, the guide includes OS mapping, detailed route description and insights into local points of interest. The introduction and appendices offer information about accommodation and services available across the island, as well as ferry routes. Easily accessible from Oban on the west coast of Scotland, the Isle of Mull will appeal to walkers seeking secluded routes with inspiring views around every corner. Boasting wild, rugged scenery and a spectacular coastline, Mull offers outstanding opportunities to observe wildlife including golden and sea eagles, otters, deer, dolphins and harbour porpoise. The islands are endlessly fascinating for geologists due to their volcanic and glaciated past, resulting in rock formations found nowhere else in the world.

This special print edition of the Fall 2014 issue of Popular Archaeology Magazine contains compelling accounts of some recent discoveries and developments in the fields of archaeology and anthropology, including discoveries that have changed the face of human evolution, a finding in an underwater cave in the Yucatan Peninsula that tells a story with implications for Native American origins, excavations at the largest ancient Mycenaean site ever discovered, new wall paintings at Angkor Wat, and much more.

Historian and Iona Community member Rosemary Power tells the story of the small Hebridean island of Iona and its remarkable spiritual influence over fifteen centuries. Beginning with the earliest Stone Age settlements, she combines new translations of early Gaelic and medieval Latin prayers with original research to chart: the founding of the abbey in 563ADsix centuries of monasticism: food, lifestyle, work and the pattern of daily prayerarchitecture, the high crosses and early artmedieval Iona: the nunnery, women’s lives, and catering for pilgrimspost Reformation Iona: the rebuilding of the Abbey, the lives of the resident population and what visitors from the 17th century onwards experienced