Ian D. Whyte – författare

In recent years scholars have begun to ask new and exciting questions about the lives of the ordinary people of Scotland in the centuries before the Industrial Revolution. The essays in this volume, written by some of the foremost figures in Scottish social history, cover many significant themes in pre-industrial Scottish society: poverty, diet, social organisation and change, urban development, population mobility and the status of women. The editors have provided an introductory overview of Scottish society analysing such topics as population, social structure, law and order, religion and popular culture. The approach throughout is a comparative one aimed at highlighting both the similarities and the distinctive features of Scottish society when compared with those of the rest of the British Isles and continental Europe. Two concluding chapters provide insights from specialists on Irish and English society into how Scotland fits into the context of 'British' social development.

This splendid portrait of medieval and early modern Scotland through to the Union and its aftermath has no current rival in chronological range, thematic scope and richness of detail. Ian Whyte pays due attention to the wide regional variations within Scotland itself and to the distinctive elements of her economy and society; but he also highlights the many parallels between the Scottish experience and that of her neighbours, especially England. The result sets the development of Scotland within its British context and beyond, in a book that will interest and delight far more than Scottish specialists alone.