No Language No Nation The Life And Times Of The Honourable Ruaraidh Erskine Of Marr

The Honourable Ruaraidh Erskine of Marr led a life very much on the move. He has left us no personal papers, although his stamp is across the personal papers of many others, and he has been written about by several eminent scholars. Erskine had his supporters, most notably the historian and Gaelic language activist, Seumas Mac A’ Ghobhainn, who hailed him as a ‘forgotten Gaelic patriot’. He has had his critics too: the BBC’s Andrew Marr, wrote that ‘in colloquial terms he was a bit of a nutter’. However, Hugh MacDiarmid said regarding Erskine: ‘Justice will be done to him yet with a biography’. This is it and it is long overdue.

What do we mean by 'Scottish literature'? Why does it matter? How do we engage with it? Bringing infectious enthusiasm and a lifetime's experience to bear on this multi-faceted literary nation, Alan Riach, Professor of Scottish Literature at the University of Glasgow, sets out to guide you through the varied and ever-evolving landscape of Scottish literature. A comprehensive and extensive work designed not only for scholars but also for the generally curious, Scottish Literature: an introduction tells the tale of Scotland's many voices across the ages, from Celtic pre-history to modern mass media. Forsaking critical jargon, Riach journeys chronologically through individual works and writers, both the famed and the forgotten, alongside broad overviews of cultural contexts which connect texts to their own times. Expanding the restrictive canon of days gone by, Riach also sets down a new core body of 'Scottish Literature': key writers and works in English, Scots, and Gaelic. Ranging across time and genre, Scottish Literature: an introduction invites you to hear Scotland through her own words.

For more than a decade now, the issue of Scottish independence has been one of the key features in British politics and has raised questions as to the likely survival of the United Kingdom in the post Brexit era. In Scotland, the SNP has been in government since 2007 and has established a political hegemony that makes it the most successful political party in terms of electoral politics in Europe. Yet, the political philosophy of this movement has not been studied in any great depth and a number of basic questions remain unanswered, such as why is the movement non-violent and constitutional? Why does it believe that Scotland as a nation should exercise its right to self-determination and how does it square a largely outward-looking and cosmopolitan vision of society with nationalism? This book answers these important questions. By examining the evolution of nationalist ideas on Scottish history, its relationship to the philosophy of nationalism, as well as how the Treaty of Union between Scotland and England created an unusual legal and constitutional framework, this book offers new insights into Scottish history and Scotland's place within the Union and relates it to wider international and imperial British history.

Introduced by John Herdman, And the Cock Crew offers one of the most powerful and searching examinations of the Highland Clearances to be found in modern Scottish literature. Written during the 1930s and published in 1945, Fionn MacColla’s finest book maintains that the roots of all social change are to be found not in so-called "economic causes," but deep in the human heart. This searching and passionate novel, with its philosophical understanding of the dangers of the will to power and its passionate advocacy of old Gaelic ways, takes the familiar themes of freedom, obedience, and dispossession beyond the Clearances themselves and into the realms of the spirit. In prose style burning with the felt immediacy of the hills and glens in which the book is set, And the Cock Crew revolves around the central encounter between Fearchar the Gaelic poet, who speaks for tradition and continuity, and Maighstir Sachairi, the minister who heralds a more modern world of control, submission, and absolute necessity. At last available in print again, Fionn MacColla’s best-known novel has lost none of its power to challenge and disturb.

Man's Worldly Goods - The Story of The Wealth of Nations By Leo Huberman Originally published in the 1930s, this is 'an attempt to explain history by economic theory, and economic theory by history'. It charts the path from feudalism to capitalism, and then looks beyond capitalism to a perceived socialist future. Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive.