On the cusp of memory and history, the story of Scotland's twentieth-century is contested territory: international yet parochial; prosperous yet ailing; and, passionate yet temperate. This thematic account of Scotland's twentieth century examines the economic, social, political and cultural aspects that shaped the country during the period. Catroina MacDonald underlines the tensions inherent in the life of a nation distinguished by stark changes and surprising continuities, a fragmented identity, a shifting and at times uneasy accommodation in the UK nation state, and an ongoing engagement with globalising tendencies. In identifying the choices, ambitions, possibilities and contradictions that Scotland experienced during a century of profound change, she uncovers a country in which one can truly say extremes met.

By examining the poems chronologically and sympathetically and by exploring the relationship of language, formal dynamics, image, and theme, this study attempts to discover the essence of MacDiarmid's highly individual contribution to the poetry of this century.

'Dooble Tongue' is an imaginative meditation on Robert Burns and Scottish poetry, as well as a book that engages and contests the customary assumptions and practices of literary criticism. Beginning with an examination of two contemporary Scottish poets, W.N. Herbert and Robert Crawford, and moving back in time to the Scottish Modernist master Hugh MacDiarmid, then further back to Burns himself, the study of the Scottish tradition is situated in a broad historical context. The focus throughout is on language (particularly Scots), more broadly vernacular literature in relation to culturally elite literary and critical modes- as well as on questions of literary nationalism and the cultural politics of poetic discourse.

Transportable Environments explores aspects of the historical and theoretical basis for portable architecture and provides an insight into the wide range of functions that it is used for today, the varied forms that it takes and the concerns and ideas for its future development. Written by a team of international commentators, this volume provides a state-of-the-art survey of this specialist area and will be of interest to a wide range of professionals across the construction and design industries.

There is no doubt that the political and cultural map of Europe is in the process of being radically redrawn. Alongside the major upheavals in continental Europe, the British Isles has undergone far-reaching constitutional reform. In Devolving Identities, feminist scholars explore their personal negotiations of gender, class, ethnicity and national or regional identity through their readings of two literary and cultural 'texts'. The collection centres on the ontological experience of reading and writing 'as a feminist', and combines the discussion of texts which are inscribed - whether consciously or unconsciously - with the academics' own struggle to reconcile their 'roots' with their current 'situations' or 'identities'. This book's focus on the overlapping of gender and national or regional identity is a direct response to the devolution movements currently active in the British Isles. The contributors are drawn from Scotland, Wales, Cornwall, Ireland, Northern Ireland and selected regions of England. In its complex engagement of subject and text and its political insistence that we no longer consider key aspects of 'identity' in isolation, this volume presents a truly state-of-the-art investigation of (a) what it means to be 'regionally defined' and (b) how the complexity of our positioning in terms of class, gender and nation impacts upon our practice as literary and cultural critics.