Set against the religious struggles of 17th-century Scotland, with Montrose for the king against a convenanted kirk, Witch Wood is a gripping atmospheric tale in the spirit of Stevenson and Neil Munro. As a moderate Presbyterian minister, young David Sempill disputes with the extremists of his faith. All around, the defeated remnants of Montrose's men are being harried and slaughtered by the faithful, and Sempill's plea for compassion, like his love for the beautiful Katrine Yester, is out of joint with the times. There are still older conflicts to be faced however, symbolized by the...

The nineteenth century was a time of massive growth for Britain. In 1800 it was overwhelmingly rural, agrarian, multilingual, and almost half-Celtic. A century later it was largely urban and English. The effects of the Industrial Revolution caused cities to swell enormously. London, for example, grew from about 1 million people to over 6 million. Abroad, the British Empire was reaching its apex, while at home the world came to marvel at the Great Exhibition of 1851 with its crowning achievement--the Crystal Palace. Historians Christopher Harvie and Colin Matthew present a comprehensive and...

Christopher Harvie offers a new portrait of society and identity in high industrial Britain by focusing on the sea as connector, not barrier. Atlantic and 'inland sea' together, Harvie argues, created a 'floating commonwealth' of port cities and their hinterlands whose interaction, both with one another and with nationalist and imperial politics, created an intense political and cultural synergy.
At a technical level, this produced the freight steamer and the efficient types of railways which opened up the developing world, as well as the institutions of international finance and...

In a scathing indictment of New Labour, MSP Christopher Harvie takes us on a tour of Britain over the last decade. He describes a growing disparity between rich and poor, how a deregulated, casino economy veered wildly out of control, and how Britain's public utilities and industries were sold off to the highest bidder.

Christopher Harvie, one of Scotland's leading historians and political writers, takes a long view of Scotland: its land, people, and culture. Scotland: A History sweeps from the earliest settlements to the new Parliament of 1999 and beyond. It describes the unique multi-ethnic kingdom which emerged from the Dark Ages, the small, proud nation manoeuvring among the great powers of medieval Europe, and the radical reformation which forced a compromise with its mighty southern neighbour. Harvie follows Scotland's tense partnership with England for over 400 years, through dual monarchy and union,...

Epitomised by political, social and technological change this history appraises a fast-evolving century, from the outbreak of World War I up to the present and the politics of devolution and the age of the internet. The book begins with the devastating impact of World War I and Scotland's critical role in its conduct, then continues to explore Scots institutional life, from 1922 to 1964, governed by the problems of economy, society, politics and culture embedded in a mature industrialised state with economic problems and governmental deficits. Two further chapters cover the period from 1964...