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Patrick Gordon (1635-1699), born in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, was a Soldier of Fortune who became a Russian general under Tsar Peter I. He was a close friend and advisor to the Tsar. After his death in 1699, Gordon left detailed diary of his life and times, written in English and now edited by Dmitry Fedosov. Volume V comprises a wide range of activities on land and sea from 1690 to 1695, many of them involving the young Tsar Peter. Having helped the future Peter the Great to consolidate his hold on the throne, Gordon grew closer to him. On the practice battlefield, the Scottish general played a leading part realistic enough for himself to be shot in the thigh and his son-in-law to be mortally wounded. As Fedosov says, Gordon along with the Tsar proceeded from the pastimes of Mars to those of Neptune in naval exercises on the White Sea. Moving south to actual combat, the Russian forces re-engaged the Crimean Khanate and Ottoman Empire in further episodes in the long struggle for the fortress of Azov. Volume V, the longest of the six volumes, contains many letters to and from Gordon and a wide range of his observations on political developments throughout Europe.

John Witherspoon (1723 – 1794) is remembered today as one of only two Scots among the 56 ‘signers’ of the Declaration of American Independence and the only clergyman to have added his name to the list of founding fathers of the nation that was set to become the United States. On that basis alone, Witherspoon earns his place as an important figure in the early history of the ‘Empire of Liberty’ – even though he has been described by some American scholars as the ‘forgotten Founder.’ But Witherspoon had two careers. His American career (as College President at Princeton and an influential politician in the revolutionary and immediate post-revolutionary war period) has understandably tended to overshadow his earlier career in Scotland as a leading light within the Popular (or Evangelical) party in the Church of Scotland at a time when the Kirk was dominated by the Moderates led by such men as William Robertson, Hugh Blair and Alexander ‘Jupiter’ Carlyle. This study shows that he had few friends among the preponderance of Moderate ministerial colleagues in the Presbytery of Paisley. The ground-breaking research underpinning this book reveals for the first time the full astonishing story of Witherspoon’s involvement in an action against him in the Court of Session in Edinburgh, a process that was begun by a lawyer, John Snodgrass, and five others in 1762 and was not determined until 1776, by which time the Paisley minister had long left Scotland for a new life as sixth President of the College of New Jersey. The process would engage the professional skills of some of the most celebrated figures in Scottish advocacy of the period, including George Wallace, Henry Dundas, David Dalrymple, Charles Hay and Andrew Crosbie. In an important ‘Concluding Essay’ the author makes a convincing case for the Snodgrass affair having influenced Witherspoon’s decision to make a new life for himself and his family in America, demolishing the traditional view that it was somehow irrelevant to that decision.

With heroic journeys on horseback and on foot to get to the nearest telegraph station, Archibald Forbes transformed the profession of war correspondent into something recognisably modern. He was widely regarded as the greatest war correspondent of the nineteenth century and the model with whom all others had to compete. It was he, more than any other, who appreciated the public demand for immediacy and therefore the need to get reports from the front into the press as fast as possible. He transformed the fortunes of the Daily News by making extensive use of the telegraph: his brilliant descriptive writing shaped images of wars for a public greedy for information and excitement. Despite persistent health difficulties he covered in the 1870s the Franco-Prussian War, the Paris Commune, the Carlist Wars in Spain, the Serbian-Turkish War, the Russo-Turkish War, the occupation of Cyprus, the Afghan War, the Zulu War, the Indian Famine and the Prince of Wales’s visit to India. At the same time, he kept up a prolific output of articles in many of which he did not hesitate to challenge the assumptions of the military authorities, to criticise the generals and to press for modernisation of the army. He defended the freedom of war correspondents to report wars as they saw them against the growing pressures to have their work censored and controlled. When ill-health forced him to abandon war work he became a tireless lecturer in Britain, the United States, Australia and New Zealand and his predictions on the shape of future wars came all too true in 1914.

Conversations with Scottish Poets presents fourteen interviews conducted by Italian literary critic and translator Marco Fazzini since the 1980s. By asking the same or similar questions of Scottish poets of different generations, the interviews provide insight both into the ideas and working methods of the individual poets and also into the ways in which the poets’ relationship with their country and its languages have changed between the twentieth and twenty first centuries. The poets interviewed are Norman MacCaig, Sorley Maclean, Edwin Morgan, Derick Thomson, Iain Crichton Smith, Alasdair Gray, Kenneth White, Douglas Dunn, Valerie Gillies, Christopher Whyte, John Burnside, David Kinloch, Robert Crawford and Don Paterson. The. interviews are illustrated with portraits of the poets by Italian artists Franco Dugo, Paolo Annibali, Nicola Nannini and Doriano Scazzosi.

Patrick Gordon (1635-1699), born in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, was a Soldier of Fortune who became a Russian general under Tsar Peter I. He was a close friend and advisor to the Tsar. After his death in 1699, Gordon left detailed diary of his life and times, written in English and now edited by Dmitry Fedosov. The sixth and final volume covers the period in which Peter the Great launched his challenge to the traditional Russian system and set Russia on the path to great power status. Gordon played a part in the successful siege and defence of Azov, which firmly established Russian power on the Caspian Sea, and the crushing of the Revolt of the Streltsy, the most dangerous early challenge to Peter’s reforms. Gordon’s diary gives insight into these dramatic events and adds much to our knowledge Peter the Great.

Professor Angelo Forte (1949–2012) held the Chair of Commercial Law at the University of Aberdeen between 1993 and 2010. During that time, he made significant scholarly contributions to commercial law, Scots private law and legal history. As a commercial lawyer and a former solicitor, he was committed to the production of high-quality research that could engage with the needs of business and commerce. He was also particularly interested in exploring the extent to which legal change had occurred as the result of purely practical considerations, such as alterations in commercial reality. In this regard he advanced our understanding of the influence of English law in eighteenth-century Scotland. Latterly he also advanced our understanding of laws that seem to have been applied among some of the Gaelic-speaking peoples of Scotland almost a thousand years ago. His eclectic writings were highly esteemed both at home and abroad. His rigour as a scholar proved inspirational to several generations of students, and it also led to a wide range of international collaborations. In the present volume, several of Angelo’s former students and colleagues seek to honour his memory by advancing lines of scholarly enquiry that he pursued. As indicated by the title of the book, a range of contributors reflect on the ways in which the purely practical or pragmatic concerns of lawyers can shape legal change. The ground covered in the book – ranging from medieval legal history to the reform of credit rating agencies – reflects the great eclecticism of Angelo’s own interests. It is hoped that this will form a fitting tribute to a great gentleman and scholar.

Scotland’s Forgotten Treasure is a detailed study of the aesthetics and the religious vision of the fantasy works written by nineteenth-century Scottish novelist, George MacDonald. MacDonald’s Phantastes (1858) and Lilith (1895) are the origin of much modern fantasy writing, and Colin Manlove brings to bear on MacDonald’s major achievements decades of study in fantasy literature to unlock the structures that govern MacDonald’s imagination and the relevance of his works to contemporary religious and scientific thought. Manlove reveals in MacDonald’s works a depth and complexity that establishes them as among the most original works of nineteenth-century literature, and a treasure that should be the centrepiece of any account of nineteenth-century Scottish fiction.

For almost three hundred years, when Catholicism was illegal in Scotland, southern Germany was host to communities of Scottish Benedictine monks. From the Reformation onwards Scots went to monasteries run by their own countrymen in Bavaria, Franconia and Thuringia in order to take up life in a religious order. Throughout their stay in the lands of the Holy Roman Emperor the concern of these Scots Benedictines was to support and engage in the missionary activities of the Catholic Church in Scotland. Almost inevitably, however, they became involved in German political life in part through being active participants in their hosts’ counter-Reformation. They became witnesses to and minor participants in a number of major cataclysmic events including the Thirty Years’ War, the War of Austrian Succession, the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars all of which threatened their continued existence. However, their survival and prosperity came to depend on the strong networks of support developed by Scots at home and in continental Europe. From the late seventeenth through to the nineteenth century the monasteries were able to engage energetically in the provision of education not only for their fellow Scots but for their German hosts. Efforts in this regard led to their making significant contributions to the wider European Enlightenment movement – a fact that has long been known in Germany although almost unrecognised elsewhere. A Saltire in the German Lands is an attempt to bring their achievements to the wider audience they deserve.

Wounded in battle, ringleader of an officers’ mutiny, survivor of a mauling by a tiger, candidate in a Parliamentary by-election – Patrick ‘Tiger’ Duff (1742–1803) had an eventful life. The son of a Speyside tenant farmer, he rose to the rank of General in the East India Company army and retired to a country estate near Turriff. He made a fortune in India, in part because of his family connections with the Gordons of Letterfourie. James and Alexander Gordon were successful wine merchants in Madeira. They not only provided for Patrick’s education, but also employed his brothers James and Robert in the wine trade. In turn, Patrick was able to win business for the partnership amongst the hard-drinking British in India. Scottish merchants, such as the Gordons, were an important part of the British merchant community in Madeira. Wealth from both sources, the empire of conquest in India and the empire of commerce exemplified by Madeira, flowed back into Scotland and fuelled the process of agricultural improvement.

This volume of essays on property law and comparative law was published in memory of Professor David Carey Miller. Throughout his career, David enjoyed the respect and esteem of his mentors, friends, colleagues and students within the School of Law at Aberdeen University, and in the wider legal communities of Scotland and his native South Africa. The essays in this volume have been organised in broad terms according to a scheme that will be familiar to those who study Scots private law, and indeed civilian systems more generally. The first nine substantive essays are concerned with property law. The next four chapters focus on the law of obligations – one being concerned with delict, one with contract and one with unjustified enrichment. The final, and longest, chapter in the book considers a neglected aspect of the law of succession. Thus the core themes that emerge from this volume reflect and engage critically with many of Carey Miller’s own scholarly concerns

Thomas Paine is rightly regarded as among the most influential of English political iconoclasts. His two best-known works – Common Sense (1776) and Rights of Man (1791) – ensured his remarkable success in positioning himself, both literally and literarily, at the forefront of both the American and French revolutions. It is no exaggeration that Paine’s works lie at the heart of popular revolutionary sentiment as it came to express itself in the later eighteenth century. For that reason they were regarded at one level as manifestos of the crying need for social and political change, but at the same time by government and the law as dangerous instruments of sedition and republicanism. In this title from Aberdeen University Press, Ronald Crawford explores how, in both Scotland and America, Paine’s brand of radicalism took particular hold, though only for a limited period – the ‘Age of Paine’. Part One of the book explores American themes discoverable in the works of Francis Hutcheson, David Hume, Adam Smith and Adam Ferguson; the explosive political impact within Scotland of Rights of Man (1776); and how Scottish precedents, through the writings of Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson, helped shape the educational system of the early United States. Part Two examines the careers of four Scots emigrants who made distinguished contributions to the American ideal of liberty: the ‘bookman’ Robert Aitken who employed Paine as contributing editor of his Pennsylvania Magazine; John Witherspoon, President of the College of New Jersey, one of the signatories to the Declaration of Independence in 1776; the radical poet, Alexander Wilson, whose (very different) Scottish and American careers are re-examined with the help of newly found original sources; and the lawyer from Fife, James Wilson, another signer, whose remarkable contributions to the evolution of the US Constitution are considered from the point of view of his indebtedness to numerous Scottish sources.

Bringing together new and established scholars, the essays in this collection offer a significant reassessment of the Scottish Enlightenment philosopher, Adam Ferguson. Moving beyond a concentration on his early Essay on the History of Civil Society (1767), the book explores his experience as a teacher of moral philosophy, his political views in an Age of Revolution, and his historical treatment of the Roman Republic. It also offers an assessment of his intellectual influence and legacy.

This biography reveals the little-known story of medically qualified research physiologist and biochemist, John Macleod (1876-1935). A child of a Free Kirk minister in rural Perthshire, Macleod was educated at the Grammar School and University in Aberdeen. Rapid career progress in Leipzig, Aberdeen and London culminated in his appointment as Professor of Physiology in Cleveland, Ohio aged only 27. He moved on to similar positions in Toronto then back in Aberdeen. In Cleveland he became an expert on carbohydrate physiology; in Toronto in 1922, he led the four-man team that discovered the world’s first clinically useful insulin. The following year, he was jointly awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine or Physiology for this life-saving scientific breakthrough, together with colleague, Frederick Banting. The latter unfairly claimed that Macleod had stolen credit for the work.In a 1982 book, The Discovery of Insulin, Canadian historian Michael Bliss gave a new, detailed interpretation of what had happened in Macleod’s department, concluding that history had underestimated Macleod’s magnificent contributions. Aberdeen-based diabetologist, Michael Williams, went on to produce this detailed account of Macleod’s life and work, originally published in 1993. This refreshed edition, J. J. R. Macleod: Co-discoverer of insulin, adds a description of several interventions over recent years to restore Macleod’s reputation as a scientist whose work contributed to saving hundreds of millions of lives.

The Artist William Keith: A Scots Giant Among the Redwoods reveals the rise of William Keith (1838? – 1911), a fatherless child from rural Aberdeenshire, Scotland who rose to an eminent position in the artistic and civic circles of Gold Rush-era San Francisco. Alexander Sutherland’s engaging study traces Keith’s life and artistic achievements, his lively personality and his drive to make a name for himself.Brought to America in 1851 by his widowed mother, Keith’s initial career in wood engraving was superseded by an interest in painting. He later trained in Europe, being influenced by German Realism and the Barbizon painters in Paris, and studied portraiture in Munich. His major artistic shift came in 1872, when he befriended the conservationist, environmentalist and fellow Scot, John Muir (1838 – 1914). Their thirty-eight-year friendship in the mountains of Yosemite and other wilderness regions inspired Keith’s work as a landscape painter.Keith’s later years were characterised by cosmopolitan and Suffragist connections in the bohemian art world of California. Although the San Francisco Earthquake of 1906 destroyed much of his life’s work, Keith responded by recommitting to his art, underscoring his remarkable achievements.

Adam Ferguson (1723-1816) was among the Scottish Enlightenment’s most influential philosophers as well as one of its most colourful and engaging characters. His pioneering contributions to the development of political economy and social theory have long been acknowledged—though, unfortunately, they have also often been misrepresented. At the same time, it is clear that the significance both of his professional activities as a distinguished university teacher in Edinburgh and of his status as one of the eighteenth century’s foremost historians of the Roman republic has been insufficiently appreciated. This innovative study of Ferguson’s life and ideas sets out to introduce this much-misunderstood figure to a new and wider audience. Paying particular attention to the powerful intellectual currents which converged so fruitfully in his writings, it explores the deep Scottish and European roots of Ferguson’s thought and assesses the continuing pertinence of some of his arguments about the origins and nature of society for an understanding of the modern world.

James Boswell (1740-95) has gone down in history as the biographer of Samuel Johnson, a sexual adventurer, a toadying Scot, and as a writer who typified the divided consciousness of the Scottish eighteenth century. Before the discovery and (since 1950) publication of his private papers, critics often saw him as a bit of a fool, whose achievement was primarily that of being lucky enough to be the friend and amanuensis of the most famous Englishman of his day. More recently, the stature of Boswell’s achievement and his complexity as a writer have been better appreciated, but without adequate understanding of his role as a specifically Scottish author and thinker of the age of Enlightenment: in particular, his anxious critique of Humean scepticism is discussed here. This study examines, through a close reading of both published and unpublished materials, how Boswell deliberately sets out to write ambiguously about himself and the major events of his time; how, far from echoing Johnson, Boswell improves on his sayings and teasingly criticizes him; and how Boswell’s political and religious sympathies with Jacobitism, Scotland and Catholicism coloured the way in which he understood his own, and his country’s, uncertain place in the new world of British imperial opportunity.

Patrick Gordon (1635-1699), born in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, was a Soldier of Fortune who became a Russian general under Tsar Peter I. He was a close friend and advisor to the Tsar. After his death in 1699, Gordon left detailed diary of his life and times, written in English and now edited by Dmitry Fedosov. In Volume I, Gordon writes of his early life near Ellon, Aberdeenshire, and of his military apprenticeship in the armies of Sweden and Poland, with colourful descriptions of people (including many fellow Scots), places and events.

Sorley MacLean (1911-1996) was the greatest Gaelic poet of the 20th Century and one of the leading figures in the Scottish literary Renaissance. He is best known for his love poetry, for poems written while he was serving in Africa during the Second World War, for poems exploring place and history, and for the long political poem ‘An Cuilithionn’. His 1943 Dàin do Eimhir agus Dàin Eile is generally regarded the single-most important book published in Gaelic in the last century. This book offers the first single-authored English language introduction to MacLean’s work. It places MacLean’s poetry in poetic, political and historical contexts, exploring its engagement with Gaelic traditions and other language literatures and also with contemporary philosophical and political movements. Discussing the entirety of MacLean’s oeuvre – and offering in-depth case studies of individual poems and groups of poems – this introduction raises questions about translation and cultural ownership in modern Scotland, and shows how and why MacLean’s work continues to resonate.

Patrick Gordon (1635-1699), born in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, was a Soldier of Fortune who became a Russian general under Tsar Peter I. He was a close friend and advisor to the Tsar. After his death in 1699, Gordon left detailed diary of his life and times, written in English and now edited by Dmitry Fedosov. In the second volume, he continues his account of service in Warsaw and elsewhere in Poland before moving to Moscow in 1661 with Paul Menzies and others. He tells of the difficulties with officialdom in his early years and his more successful military activities, often in the company of fellow Scots. He also gives a full description of a mission to London, including meetings with Charles II.

This is the first monograph wholly devoted to the poetry of Northern Irish Poet Medbh McGuckian and it presents pathways into her work that have thus far remained largely unexplored. The chapters examine the ways in which McGuckian uses literary exemplars to explore the psychodramas of female literary authorship and ways of approaching issues of memory, trauma and elegiac remembrance. It provides an excellent introduction to McGuckian’s poetry and argues that her work self-reflexively presents a deeply felt belief in the primacy (and efficacy) of poetry in the modern world.

John Dickie was born in Aberdeen in 1824. Five years later the family moved to a croft at Balquhain, in the shadow of Bennachie, and up to the age of 23 his world was contained within a 15-mile radius of Inverurie. An itinerant farm servant, John worked at Harlaw, Thainstone, Daviot, Tarves, Udny and Oldmeldrum until in December 1847 he exchanged the country for the city, when he returned to Aberdeen to marry and take up employment as a warehouseman. He died in 1903. Throughout his life John Dickie enjoyed dipping his pen in the ink. Some of his efforts were for the benefit of others: on two occasions in the 1860s he petitioned his employers, on behalf of his fellow workers, to request a Saturday half-day and an increase in wages. But his most illuminating piece of work is this unpublished memoir of his early years, which reflects not only his personal rhythms of life and work, but also the impact of regional and national issues on the farming communities of Aberdeenshire.

Patrick Gordon (1635-1699), born in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, was a Soldier of Fortune who became a Russian general under Tsar Peter I. He was a close friend and advisor to the Tsar. After his death in 1699, Gordon left detailed diary of his life and times, written in English and now edited by Dmitry Fedosov. The third volume contains an absolutely unique eyewitness account of the main action in the first of Russia’s many wars with the Ottoman Empire. Gordon’s record of events and his observations are not limited to military matters, and provide material for the political, social, and cultural history of Russia as well as that of the Ukrainian Cossacks.

Patrick Gordon (1635-1699), born in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, was a Soldier of Fortune who became a Russian general under Tsar Peter I. He was a close friend and advisor to the Tsar. After his death in 1699, Gordon left detailed diary of his life and times, written in English and now edited by Dmitry Fedosov. The fourth volume, detailing the years 1684-1689, describes all manner of military activities, in particular two campaigns against the Ottoman Turks culminating in the capture of their fortress at Azov. In addition, Gordon gives an evocative account of a visit to Britain, meetings with King James VII and II in London followed by a reunion with friends and family back home in Aberdeenshire. He also tells us of many contacts with the future Peter the Great before and during the young tsar’s seizure of power from his half-sister the Regent Sophia.