Great Scots

Great Scots! chronicles how penniless but enterprising Scottish emigres came to dominate almost all forms of enterprise in early Canada and literally created much of the country we know today. Through the fur trade, Scots formed the backbone of North America's first continent-wide industry more than two hundred years ago. This book demonstrates the astounding extent to which Canada's fundamental institutions and culture are a product of early, tough-minded Scottish immigrants.

Robert the Bruce was Scotland's greatest King ever. The Bruce, as he was known, was crowned King of Scots in 1306, a time when the ancient kingdom of Scotland was under harsh and illegal English occupation. As soon as King Robert began his reign, his army was treacherously attacked at Methven, resulting in a calamitous defeat for the Scots which forced the Bruce into hiding. Yet, steadily between 1307 and 1313 King Robert won battle after battle, shunning pitched medieval clashes, and fighting as a guerilla force, a form of warfare which he, perhaps, invented. The war peaked in 1314 when the Bruce faced a formidable English invasion. With brilliant tactics and resolute bravery the vastly outnumbered Scots defeated and routed the knights, archers, and foot soldiers of mighty England at the Battle of Bannockburn. And that's only the first part of this epic tale of the Bruce's long and event-filled life. The Great Scot is a novel filled with valor, treachery, passionate love, journeys great and small, and people of every rank and situation-all from the pages of Scottish history.

Alexander MacDonald guides us through his family’s mythic past as he recollects the heroic stories of his people: loggers, miners, drinkers, adventurers; men forever in exile, forever linked to their clan. There is the legendary patriarch who left the Scottish Highlands in 1779 and resettled in “the land of trees,” where his descendents became a separate Nova Scotia clan. There is the team of brothers and cousins, expert miners in demand around the world for their dangerous skills. And there is Alexander and his twin sister, who have left Cape Breton and prospered, yet are haunted by the past. Elegiac, hypnotic, by turns joyful and sad, No Great Mischief is a spellbinding story of family, loyalty, exile, and of the blood ties that bind us, generations later, to the land from which our ancestors came.

The brainchild of bestselling author Alexander McCall Smith, historian Alistair Moffat and artist Andrew Crummy, the Great Tapestry of Scotland is an outstanding celebration of thousands of years of Scottish history and achievement, from the end of the last Ice Age to Dolly the Sheep and Andy Murray's Wimbledon victory in 2013. This book tells the story of this unique undertaking from its original conception and creation by teams of dedicated stitchers to its grand unveiling at the Scottish Parliament in 2013, its subsequent touring and the creation of its permanent home in the Scottish Borders.

Riveting selections from a 15-century account of Scottish history, one of Scotland’s national treasures. Writing on a small island in the Firth of Forth in the 1440s, Walter Bower set out to tell the whole story of the Scottish nation in a single huge book, the Scotichronicon— “a history book for Scots.” It begins with the mythical voyage of Scota, the Pharaoh’s daughter, from Egypt with the Stone of Destiny. The land that her sons discovered in the Western Ocean was named after her: Scotland. It then describes the turbulent events that followed, among them the wars of the Scots and the Picts (begun by a quarrel over a dog); the poisoning of King Fergus by his wife; Macbeth’s usurpation and uneasy reign; the good deeds of Margaret, queen and saint; Bruce’s murder of the Red Comyn; the founding of Scotland’s first university at St. Andrews; the “Burnt Candlemas;” and the endless troubles between Scotland and England. Weaving in and out of the events of Bower’s factual history are other subjects that fascinated him: harrowing visions of hell and purgatory, extraordinary miracles; the exploits of knights and beggars, merchants and monks; the ravages of flood and fire; the terrors of the plague; and the answers to such puzzling questions as what makes a good king, and why Englishmen have tails. This monumental work, in which the original Latin text appears side by side with a translation in modern English, was completed in 1998. It includes an introduction and notes that guide the reader through the complexities of Bower’s history and its background.

Great Scots, A Very Peculiar History looks at a whole host of great (and not so great) Scots and their influence on the world. The book features a short history of each person, detailing their achievements, personalities and lifestyles in a quirky and memorable way. Including chapters about Scots in power, scientific Scots, scandalous Scots and many, many more, Great Scots, A Very Peculiar History celebrates the men and women who have helped to shape Scottish history.