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The lost story of the Shetland Female Emigration Fund
Read more: The lost story of the Shetland Female Emigration FundVéronique Molinari explores how four people united forces to help young Shetlanders emigrate to Australia
Investigating Scotland’s land issues, past, present and future
‘The politics of this country will probably, for the next few years, mainly consist in an assault upon the constitutional position of the landed interest.’ Benjamin Disraeli So said the Conservative politician and Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli in the late…
It should not be ‘a matter of £ s d.’: The Crown estate, foreshore and the public interest
One of the reasons for the devolution of the management of the Scottish Crown estate property to the Scottish government in April 2017 was because of the perception that the Crown Estate Commissioners in London focussed too narrowly on securing…
Hamish Henderson and our Historical Moment
What’s the artist for in modern Scotland? Curating our accumulated history? Envisioning our possible and impossible futures? Diagnosing the ills of our present and prescribing treatment for the body politic? Showing us who we are, or who we ought to…
Viking Law and Order
My new book, Viking Law and Order, paints a rather different picture of Viking Age society from the one we are used to. We often hear discussions of violent raids and systematic pillaging by warriors arriving in long ships. It…
Celebrating 70 Years of the Edinburgh International Festival
An extract from The Edinburgh Festivals: Culture and Society in Post-war Britain by Angela Bartie On Sunday 24 August 1947, the first Edinburgh International Festival of Music and Drama opened with a service of praise in St Giles’ Cathedral, the…
George Mackay Brown and the Scottish Catholic Imagination
What do you imagine when you think about great Catholic art? Perhaps you call to mind the gilded pages of illuminated medieval manuscripts and the glories of Renaissance painting and sculpture. Maybe you recall more recent cinematic masterpieces, such as…
Scottish Migration Since 1600
Migration today is an increasingly contentious, even toxic, issue. It is being held responsible for Brexit, the coming to power of United States President Donald Trump and a rise in hate crimes. In such a climate we tend to forget…
St Andrew’s Day celebrations in Asia
By Tanja Bueltmann As St Andrew’s Day nears Scots all around the world are preparing to celebrate it in style. From New York in the United States to Dunedin in New Zealand, St Andrew’s Day celebrations are now a truly…
Agricultural improvement and India
In the May 2015 issue of the Journal of Scottish Historical Studies, Eric Grant and Alistair Mutch explore the intertwined careers of Kenneth Murchison, surgeon, and Patrick Duff, General of the East India Company’s artillery in Bengal. Both men returned…