Scotland And Nationalism

An authoritative survey of Scottish social and political history from 1707 to the present day. This fourth edition brings the story and historiography of Scottish society and politics up to date.

First published in 1977, Scotland and Nationalism, Christopher Harvie's acclaimed study of Scottish culture and politics since the Union of 1707, has been extensively rewritten to bring the story entirely up-to-date, drawing on the remarkable output of Scottish historians and writers in more recent years. A new chapter discusses the whole of the Referendum and Devolution, and a rewritten last chapter examines topics like the Dunblane massacre, forms of popular culture, and the development of nationalist feeling in a wider cultural context. Beneath the political level, but interacting with it, Harvie sees the evolution of a "civic republicanism" which, unless checked by real measures of federalism, renders the future of the Union unpromising.

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.

Scottish Nationalism and the Idea of Europe offers fresh insights into the 'pro-European' dimension of Scottish nationalism and its implications for the UK.

Traces the development of the ideology of modern Scottish nationalism from the 1960s to the independence referendum in 2014.

The traditional view of the Scottish nation holds that it first arose during the Wars of Independence from England in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Although Scotland was absorbed into Britain in 1707 with the Treaty of Union, Scottish identity is supposed to have remained alive in the new state through separate institutions of religion (the Church of Scotland), education, and the legal system. Neil Davidson argues otherwise. The Scottish nation did not exist before 1707. The Scottish national consciousness we know today was not preserved by institutions carried over from the pre-Union period, but arose after and as a result of the Union, for only then were the material obstacles to nationhood – most importantly the Highland/Lowland divide – overcome. This Scottish nation was constructed simultaneously with and as part of the British nation, and the eighteenth century Scottish bourgeoisie were at the forefront of constructing both. The majority of Scots entered the Industrial Revolution with a dual national consciousness, but only one nationalism, which was British. The Scottish nationalism which arose in Scotland during the twentieth century is therefore not a revival of a pre-Union nationalism after 300 years, but an entirely new formation. Davidson provides a revisionist history of the origins of Scottish and British national consciousness that sheds light on many of the contemporary debates about nationalism.

The rise and spectacular growth of Nationalist movements in Scotland and Wales has transformed the British political scene. Hanham's lively, sympathetic and very well informed account of Scottish Nationalism could hardly be more timely.