• Colour drawing of a staged theatrical scene framed by two symmetrical classical structures with niches containing gilded statues, flanked by trees. At the centre, a painted backdrop shows an island within an archipelago, with a visible settlement; in the foreground, a vessel approaches the shore. Four figures stand before the backdrop holding branches and other objects. The composition is enclosed within a thin rectangular gold border.
A close-up photo of a brown desk with a clock, notebook, a satchel and a cup holding a bunch of pencils

Scottish Education and Society Since 1945

by Lindsay Paterson Scottish education has often been celebrated as an international pioneer in many things – the opportunity to provide schooling for everyone in the sixteenth-century Reformation, resulting in widespread literacy that provided the social basis for the eighteenth-century…

A statue of Robert Burns

Robert Burns’s Memory: A Matter of State

by Paul Malgrati Every year, on 25 January, Burns Night offers a remarkable opportunity for Scottish political parties to issue a statement about the Scottish nation, its identity, and its situation. Last year, in 2022, Scotland’s First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon,…

Stands Scottish Literature Where It Did? Revisiting Devolution

It’s been fifteen years since the last fat volume of essays on contemporary Scottish writing. Only a blink of historical time, but it’s been quite an eventful period. When the chapters of Berthold Schoene’s brilliant Edinburgh Companion to Contemporary Scottish Literature were being written, both the country and its debates looked rather different.

Remembering the history of Scottish land reform

By Ewen Cameron I was delighted to publish Freshness, Freedom, and Peace?: Land Settlement in Scotland after the Great War  in Northern Scotland, 2nd series, 11.2 (2020), 161–75. This was a special issue arising from a stimulating conference held at…