This is a history of Scotland as a society experiencing industrialization and urbanization in all its aspects and it takes the impact of these processes over their widest range from croft, bothy and hunting lodge to mines, foundries, and urban poor houses. The volumes create an awareness of the identity and distinctiveness of Scotland and recognize it as a multi-cultured society, the highland and lowland cultures being only the major ones among several.

This is a history of Scotland as a society experiencing industrialization and urbanization in all its aspects and it takes the impact of these processes over their widest range from croft, bothy and hunting lodge to mines, foundries, and urban poor houses. The volumes create an awareness of the identity and distinctiveness of Scotland and recognize it as a multi-cultured society, the highland and lowland cultures being only the major ones among several.

This is the second volume of a three-volume study of Scottish social change and development from the eighteenth century to the present day, originally published by John Donald in association with the Economic and Social History Society of Scotland. The series covers the history of industrialisation and urbanisation in Scottish society and records many experiences which Scotland shared in common with other societies, looking at the impact of those changes throughout the spectrum of society from croft, bothy and hunting lodge to mines, foundries and urban poor houses. The series is intended to illustrate the identity and distinctiveness of Scotland through its separate institutions and through areas such as language, law and religion and recognises Scotland as a multi-cultured society, the highland and lowland cultures being only two among several.

The Press and the People is the first full-length study of cheap print in early modern Scotland. It traces the production and distribution of ephemeral publications from the nation's first presses in the early sixteenth century through to the age of Burns in the late eighteenth. It explores the development of the Scottish book trade in general and the production of slight and popular texts in particular. Focusing on the means by which these works reached a wide audience, it illuminates the nature of their circulation in both urban and rural contexts. Specific chapters examine single-sheet imprints such as ballads and gallows speeches, newssheets and advertisements, as well as the little pamphlets that contained almanacs and devotional works, stories and songs. The book demonstrates just how much more of this literature was once printed than now survives and argues that Scotland had a much larger market for such material than has been appreciated. By illustrating the ways in which Scottish printers combined well-known titles from England with a distinctive repertoire of their own, The Press and the People transforms our understanding of popular literature in early modern Scotland and its contribution to British culture more widely.

Throughout this volume emphasis is placed on the particular identity and distinctiveness of Scotland in terms both of its institutions and the social values of the Scottish people.