Keith Brown moves the story forward from Reformation to Union, arguing that there was nothing inevitable about either. The text also responds to current concerns, with a full discussion of gender issues, including employment, sexuality, and authority within the family. They see innate conservatism alongside anglophobia as other "enduring psychological scars" (p. This is a lengthy chapter that points out that "coming to terms with the English remains one of the medieval past's most enduring legacies" (p. For David Ditchburn and Alastair MacDonald, medieval Scotland is taken forward to 1560.
By then, "the medieval Scottish identity was fast taking shape, and even though the geographical limits had not been reached in every direction the territorial extent was recognised and attainable" (p. The impact of successive incomers is ably considered as the story is taken forward to the 1090s.
Thomas Owen Clanchy and Barbara Crawford discuss the formation of the Scottish kingdom, pointing out that, as a territorial unit, Scotland was late in forming. Ian Armit on "Prehistory" ranges widely and makes the point that in that period "divisions between communities in different parts of Scotland were at least as great as those which separated them from neighbours in England, Ireland, and the mainland of northern Europe" (p. For example, in the discussion of religion, the editors point out that the twentieth century saw not a linear trend towards secularization, but a series of phases of growth and decline, with a shift from a comprehensive religious culture to a society based on voluntary but often strongly held religious beliefs. There is a full introduction on "Scots and their Histories" which covers much of Scottish history and makes a large number of sensible points. The editors have assembled a good team, and the latter do not disappoint. That was probably a publisher's decision, and it contrasts with the ably selected and handsomely reproduced illustrations, and with the space found for full bibliographical essays at the end of each chapter. A book that cries out for maps (how many non-Scottish readers know where Galloway or the Great Glen are?), for tables (whether of coal production or rising Scottish Nationalist votes), and for notes that draw attention to differences of opinion is, instead, more simply presented. The reader is not entirely served well by this paperback edition of a work first published in 2001.
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