A Private Empire explores Britain's imperial past through the eyes and experiences of a single family. Historian Stephen Foster focuses on the Macphersons of Blairgowrie in Scotland, who recorded their private and public lives through five generations in an extraordinary archive of letters, documents and diaries. Elegantly presented with contemporary paintings and photographs, A Private Empire tells an intimate story of ambition and frustration, love and deception, wisdom and folly, pride and shame, passion and restraint, an attachment to place, an affection for kin-all set against the grand shifting background of Britain's imperial rule. 'In a world overpopulated by self-indulgent family histories, A Private Empire is that rarity which makes one keep reading to find out what happened to its cast of strangers.' Stephen Wilks, The Canberra Times 'A remarkably impressive book. The story he tells is an extraordinary one; indeed if it were written in the fictional genre of the family saga you would think he was stretching credulity.' Professor Stuart Macintyre, AO 'Superbly researched and wonderfully revelatory.' Professor John Mackenzie, The Scotsman 'An enthralling read and an important piece of history.' Undiscovered Scotland

'Berry Treasured Memories' charts 100 years of raspberry growing in Blairgowrie, Scotland from the start of the local industry in 1885 through to 1985. The book was written by Blairgowrie fruit grower Jim Niven during his retirement and completed by his daughter Irene Geoghegan following Jim's death in 2008. This is a personal account of the Niven family's involvement with the berry-growing business and contains a wealth of detail and photographs combining Jim's own experiences with scientific and technical changes in the industry. The book will help many recall their own memories of 'the berries' and give a great insight to anyone interested in the history and development of berry growing in Scotland.

Originally published in 1980, this book examines the evolution of the Scottish landscape from pre-historic times to the mid-nineteenth century. It considers the way in which the structural base of agriculture and the changing farming ‘system’ came to alter the Scottish rural landscape. This book, with its focus on the underlying landscape processes, gives a developmental view of landscape change. It therefore considers the crucial question of the rate and pace of landscape change and argues that the Scottish landscape was not the product of a few brief phases of quite rapid development but rather the result of a continual and gradual process of change. It also looks at the regional variation of landscape change and establishes the importance of regional linkages in the diffusion of ideas especially in new technology.

The tragedy of the Clearances, brought about by cynical, often absentee landlords, is a black page in Scotland's history. Written while the effects it describes were still unfolding, Mackenzie's history brings the distress before the reader.