Morvern Transformed

Morvern Transformed
Author: Philip Gaskell
Publisher: CUP Archive
Total Pages: 324
Release: 1980-05-22
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780521297974

Dr Gaskell's pioneering study of social and economic change in a west Highland parish during the last century has come to be regarded as a classic of local history, a book which raises issues that are still of general and indeed of national importance. But Morvern Transformed is more than a study of history: it is (to quote Professor R. H. Campbell's new Introduction) 'a fascinating portrayal of a way of life which, only a century old, is already as different from the present as it was in its own day from the way of life another century before.'

Pabay

Pabay
Author: Christopher Whatley
Publisher: Birlinn
Total Pages: 427
Release: 2019-09-18
Genre: History
ISBN: 1788852087

“An island history almost without comparison . . . one of the finest Highland books of the 21st century” from the renowned Scottish historian (West Highland Free Press). The tiny diamond-shaped island of Pabay lies in Skye’s Inner Sound, just two and a half miles from the bustling village of Broadford. One of five Hebridean islands of that name, it derives from the Norse papa-ey, meaning “island of the priest.” Many visitors since the first holy men built their chapel there have felt that Pabay is a deeply spiritual place, and one of wonder. These include the great 19th-century geologists Hugh Miller and Archibald Geikie, for whom the island’s rocks and fossil-laden shales revealed much about the nature of Creation itself. Len and Margaret Whatley moved to Pabay from the Midlands and lived there from 1950 until 1970. Leaving a landlocked life in Birmingham for the emptiness of an uninhabited island was a brave and challenging move for which nothing could have prepared them. Christopher Whatley, their nephew, was a regular visitor to Pabay whilst they lived there. In this book, based on archival research, oral interviews, memory and personal experience, he explores the history of this tiny island jewel, and the people for whom it has been home, to create a vivid picture of the trials, tribulations and joys of island life. “If the island itself is a diamond, this work is a sparkling gem.” —The Press and Journal “Beautifully written, and presents a richly detailed and fascinating historical narrative . . . It’s as much a testimony to how people have shaped the island and how the island has shaped them.” —Dundee Courier

Gaelic Scotland

Gaelic Scotland
Author: Charles W J Withers
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 414
Release: 2015-12-14
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1317332806

This book, originally published in 1988, examines the Highlands and Islands of Scotland over several centuries and charts their cultural transformation from a separate region into one where the processes of anglicisation have largely succeeded. It analyses the many aspects of change including the policies of successive governments, the decline of the Gaelic language, the depressing of much of the population into peasantry and the clearances.

Land, Faith and the Crofting Community

Land, Faith and the Crofting Community
Author: Allan W. MacColl
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
Total Pages: 240
Release: 2006-04-20
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0748626743

This book probes the deep-rooted links between the land, the people and the religious culture of the Scottish Highlands and Islands in the nineteenth century. The responses of the clergy to the social crisis which enveloped the region have often been characterised as a mixture of callous indifference, cowering deference or fatalistic passivity. Allan MacColl's pioneering research challenges such stereotypical representations of Highland ministers head-on. Land, Faith and the Crofting Community is the first full-scale examination of Christian social teaching in the nineteenth-century Gaidhealtachd and addresses a major gap in the historical understanding of Gaelic society. Seeking to lay bare the existing myths by a wide-ranging analysis of all the denominational, theological and social factors at play, this study boldly overturns the received scholarly and popular interpretations. A ground-breaking work, it explores a substantial but under-utilised field of evidence and questions whether or not Highland Christians "e; both clergy and laity "e; were committed to land reform as an engine of social improvement and conciliation. The Christian contribution to the development of a distinctively Highland identity "e; which found expression during the Crofters' War of the 1880s "e; is delineated, while wider links between theology and social philosophy are examined from beyond the perspective of the Highlands.

George MacLeod

George MacLeod
Author: Ron Ferguson
Publisher: Wild Goose Publications
Total Pages: 448
Release: 2001-06-21
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1849521077

The definitive study of one of the twentieth century's most fascinating and influential churchmen, an outspoken challenger to the status quo and the founder of the radical and often controversial Iona Community.

'The People Are Not There'

'The People Are Not There'
Author: David Taylor
Publisher: Birlinn Ltd
Total Pages: 311
Release: 2022-08-04
Genre: History
ISBN: 1788855221

Badenoch today is a landscape of empty glens and ruined settlements, but it was not always so. This book examines the transformative events that shaped the region's destiny: climate and market forces, hunger and relief measures, sheep farms and sporting estates, agricultural improvement and proprietorial greed, and the evolution of clanship. Although this is an intensely localised study, the dramatic nature of change is explored against the wider context of events not just across the Highlands, but also within the British state and its global empire. Badenoch's journey moves from the relative prosperity of the Napoleonic Wars into the terrible post-war destitution that devastated peasant, tacksman and Duke of Gordon alike. Estate reform and 'improvement' gradually brought a degree of economic and social stability, but inevitably resulted in depopulation as people were forced off the land to seek refuge in the impoverished 'planned villages' or to abandon their Gaelic homeland for life in the Lowlands. For those with the means, however, emigration provided lucrative opportunities unimaginable at home. Through extensive use of documentary evidence, much of it previously unseen, David Taylor paints an intimate portrait of the historically neglected region of Badenoch – one that provides a compelling new perspective on Highland history.

Episcopalianism in Nineteenth-Century Scotland

Episcopalianism in Nineteenth-Century Scotland
Author: Rowan Strong
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Total Pages: 366
Release: 2002-03-21
Genre: History
ISBN: 0199249229

Rowan Strong examines the history of Scottish Episcopalianism in the nineteenth century as a response to the new urbanizing and industrializing society of the time. In particular, he looks at the various Episcopalian sub-cultures which had to come to terms with these social and economic changes. These sub-cultures include Highland Gaels; North-East crofters, farmers and fisherfolk; urban Episcopalians; aristocratic Episcopalians; and Evangelicals and Anglo-Catholics. He providesalso an outline of the history of Episcopalianism in Scotland from the sixteenth century to 1900, Rowan Strong addresses the issue of Episcopalianism and Scottish identity, which is topical today.

From Chiefs to Landlords

From Chiefs to Landlords
Author: Robert A. Dodgshon
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
Total Pages: 279
Release: 2019-07-29
Genre: History
ISBN: 1474467784

This new approach to Highland history before the Clearances draws attention to little-studied yet important economic and social processes within the Highland clan system and argues that we should consider the problems of traditional Highland society, economy and environment together. Exploring how the different aspects of the clan system - chiefs and kinsmen, landlords and tenants, farming systems, production strategies and marketing - changed between the 16th-18th centuries, it shows how the character and ideology of clans and chiefdoms are inextricably part of the twin problems of socio-political control and food production. Shifting the emphasis away from depictions of Highland society as lawless and disorganised, this is a welcome antidote to the many romanticised views of pre-Clearance society. Prize Winner! Honorable Mention - Frank Watson Scottish History Prize 1999

No Stone Unturned

No Stone Unturned
Author: Robert A Dodgshon
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
Total Pages: 312
Release: 2015-05-19
Genre: Technology & Engineering
ISBN: 1474400752

A survey of how Highland society organised its farming communities, exploited its resource base and interacted with its environment from prehistory to 1914