Originally published in 1968, this book gave a rounded picture of some of the problems which were facing the Highlands of Scotland in the first half of the twentieth century. The contributors examined various aspects of the Highland problem and ways of solving it: how to develop productive industry, stabilize the population, encourage creative growth of community and support Gaelic culture and language. The book takes full account of the historical background, linguistic, literary and economic situation.

First published in 1985, A History of the Highland Clearances: Volume 2 explores the various types of communal and intellectual responses, contemporary and retrospective, to the experience of the clearances. The first section considers the legacy of the two hundred years’ debate about the Highland problem and the place of the clearances therein. The second section assesses the scale, range and timing of the emigrations of the Highlanders, as well as some of the motivations. The third section contemplates the direct popular response to the clearances, the collective memory and the tradition of physical resistance. The fourth section is about the career, trial and reputation of Patrick Sellar, which together embodied much of the social history, ruling ideas, and the necessary mythology of the clearances. The final section considers the fundamental economic problem of the Highlands in the age of the clearances, and the moral and economic alternatives that faced the community, the landlords, and the nation.

Scotland's crofters have had to fight hard to retain both their land and their way of life. In the nineteenth century their enemies were the landlords who regularly forced them from their crofts. Twentieth-century threats to crofting have been more insidious, but every bit as real.