Overview

Scottish Society, 1707-1830 challenges much conventional wisdom and provides readers with many new insights into Scottish social and economic history. Argues that the Union of 1707 was vital for Scottish success, but in ways which have hitherto been overlooked. Contests received wisdom on issues such as the role of the Kirk and other agencies for inculcating order, and argues that the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries in Scotland were years of upheaval and deep social conflict in both the Highlands and Lowlands, where commercialism and later the market economy revolutionised social relationships. The period surrounding the Radical War in 1820 is identified as a watershed in Scottish history, almost making but also breaking the Scottish working class. Not only on an exhaustive reading of secondary material but also incorporates a wealth of new evidence from previously little-used or unused primary sources.