Union and Revolution: Scotland and Beyond, 1625-1745

Scotland's history in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries continues to get a bad press. Popular books and television programmes portray this period as one defined by economic stagnation, religious fanaticism, and cultural backwardness. These assumptions help to reinforce the idea, commonplace amongst the British governing and media establishments, that the loss of Scotland's political autonomy through incorporating union with England in 1707 was the necessary price to be paid for...