From the earliest times to the present day, this work traces the origin of Scottish national identity and people's perceptions of it. It covers the Scottish Origin Legend, expressed in the works of medieval chroniclers, to the ideas of contemporary historians. The author also examines such topics as: Gaelic kingship, George Buchanan, the Reformation, the Enlightenment, James Macpherson, Goths versus Gaels, and George Chalmers.

The traditional view of the Scottish nation holds that it first arose during the Wars of Independence from England in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Although Scotland was absorbed into Britain in 1707 with the Treaty of Union, Scottish identity is supposed to have remained alive in the new state through separate institutions of religion (the Church of Scotland), education, and the legal system. Neil Davidson argues otherwise. The Scottish nation did not exist before 1707. The Scottish national consciousness we know today was not preserved by institutions carried over from the pre-Union period, but arose after and as a result of the Union, for only then were the material obstacles to nationhood – most importantly the Highland/Lowland divide – overcome. This Scottish nation was constructed simultaneously with and as part of the British nation, and the eighteenth century Scottish bourgeoisie were at the forefront of constructing both. The majority of Scots entered the Industrial Revolution with a dual national consciousness, but only one nationalism, which was British. The Scottish nationalism which arose in Scotland during the twentieth century is therefore not a revival of a pre-Union nationalism after 300 years, but an entirely new formation. Davidson provides a revisionist history of the origins of Scottish and British national consciousness that sheds light on many of the contemporary debates about nationalism.

Written by his former colleagues and students--who are now leading historians--the essays in this resource are a tribute to William Ferguson, a pioneering scholar who has published major work on modern Scottish history and its importance to the Scottish identity. These accounts reflect the impressive range of Ferguson's interests, from medieval history to present day, and pay homage to both his controversial subjects as well as his contribution to the revival of Scottish history as part of Scottish culture and politics.

This volume examines the impact of military activity upon Scotland's national identity as the country underwent a fundamental transition through domestic centralisation at the turn of the seventeenth century, integration into the United Kingdom in 1707, and as a partner in Britain's global empire during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. It is divided into three thematic sections that examine the evolution of Scottish military identity over the early modern period, how the Highland region moved from a relationship of hostility to the Lowland political authorities to the central element in eighteenth and ninteenth century Scottish soldiering, and, finally, how aspects of Scotland's civilian society interrelated with her soldiers.

Feeling British argues that the discourse of sympathy both encourages and problematizes a sense of shared national identity in eighteenth-century and Romantic British literature and culture. Although the 1707 Act of Union officially joined England and Scotland, government policy alone could not overcome centuries of feuding and ill will between these nations. Accordingly, the literary public sphere became a vital arena for the development and promotion of a new national identity, Britishness. Feeling British starts by examining the political implications of the Scottish Enlightenment's theorizations of sympathy the mechanism by which emotions are shared between people. From these philosophical beginnings, this study tracks how sympathetic discourse is deployed by a variety of authors - including Defoe, Smollett, Johnson, Wordsworth, and Scott - invested in constructing, but also in questioning, an inclusive sense of what it means to be British.

After Edward I defeated the Scots he deposed King John Balliol and appointed Englishmen to administer Scotland and the Church. With most of the nobility reluctant to oppose Edward, Wallace depended on the middling classes for support and they saw their fight being for the liberty of their country. This required Scots to explain who and what they were and to win support from European powers against Edward’s claim to be the overlord of Scotland. In 1301 a group of Scots clerics presented their case to the Pope, not only arguing that the English arguments were flawed, but also producing evidence that Scots and their kingdom had quite different and older origins than Edward made out. With continuing diplomatic pressure from England and the emergence of Robert the Bruce as the Scots leader, the community of the realm took up these ideas and refined them to produce in 1320 the Declaration of Arbroath: the final and lasting statement of Scottish independence. This book examines these documents, placing them in their historical background and giving the original text of the most important of them. Tom Dowds is Tutor in History at the Centre for Lifelong Learning, Strathclyde University, Glasgow.

T. M. Devine uses extensive original research to examine Scotland's urban vigor as well as describing the traditional aspects of Scottish history, covering key topics such as the Union, the Enlightenment, Industrialization, the Clearances, Religion, and the Road to Devolution. He also explores the global Diaspora of the Scots, the impact of migrants, and the effect of the World Wars. Throughout, Scotland's story is set against the background of British, European, and world history.