The Highland Clearances: People, Landlords, and Rural Turmoil - Softcover

Richards, Eric

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1841580406 ISBN 13: 9781841580401

Publisher: Birlinn Ltd, 2000

Synopsis

The Highland Clearances were one of the most devastating events in Scotland's history: brutal evictions, burning, starvation, and barren wastes. This new study shows how much deeper and more complex the subject is than had been previously thought. Eric Roberts tracks the origins of the Clearances from the 18th century to their culmination in the crofting legislation of the 1880s. He shows how the process of clearance was part of a European movement of rural depopulation, describes the gross overcrowding and appalling conditions of the Highland population and shows how invidious and difficult were the choices that faced even the most benevolent of landlords in the face of the harsh tide of economic change.

In no way is the brutality and horror of the Clearances diminished by time. The Clearances created a terrible scar in the Highland and Gaelic imagination, but it must be remembered, that they were simply one amongst many attempted "solutions" to a problem -- a problem that remains today -- of how to maintain a population on marginal and infertile land. As we enter the 21st century, the question of the Clearances is still with us and still unanswered.

About this title

About the Author

Eric Richards is Professor of History at the Flinders University

Review

Richards challenges his readers to understand a historical phenomenon and wrestle with analysis of primary and secondary sources through two complementary sections! fills the gap where an analytical overview has been sorely needed. He offers no easy resolutions but encourages readers to wrestle with the very mixed motives, events and outcomes termed 'Highland Clearances' as well as with the dichotomised rhetoric which has characterised debate. -- Elizabeth Ritchie, University of Guelph Scottish Historical Review Graham examines the tensions and uncertainties of 1690s Scotland, and Edinburgh in particular, and how they led up to what for him amounts to a ritual sacrifice. In doing so, he sets himself the task of reconstructing the mindset of a community-no easy goal, but one which he accomplishes in availing himself of spiritual diaries, private correspondence, newspapers, parliamentary and church records, and pamphlets, among other valuable primary sources! This timely volume does not shy away from modern implications of the Aikenhead case. Graham has offered us not only a fine addition to the literature on seventeenth-century Scotland, but a portrait of contemporary life all the more vivid due to its relevance to debates we face over three centuries later. -- Nathan P. Gray, University of Glasgow Kelvingrove Review Although this book is of course focused on the clearances, it could make essential reading for any student or practitioner of history in how to write on a controversial topic. -- Annie Tindley History Scotland It is in this sense above all that the Highland Clearances are, as Eric Richards comments in his new book, 'a classic historical problem'. Because the issues at stake in the clearances were so basic to the formation of modern society, and because the economic and other forces then in conflict remain in conflict today in some of our planet's most crisis-ridden localities, there is not, and cannot be, anything approximating to a definitive verdict on the clearances. Debate, in other words, will continue. But if such debate is to yield more than endless contention, it needs to be well informed. Hence this book's value. -- James Hunter, UHI Centre for History Scottish Historical Review Richards challenges his readers to understand a historical phenomenon and wrestle with analysis of primary and secondary sources through two complementary sections! fills the gap where an analytical overview has been sorely needed. He offers no easy resolutions but encourages readers to wrestle with the very mixed motives, events and outcomes termed 'Highland Clearances' as well as with the dichotomised rhetoric which has characterised debate. Graham examines the tensions and uncertainties of 1690s Scotland, and Edinburgh in particular, and how they led up to what for him amounts to a ritual sacrifice. In doing so, he sets himself the task of reconstructing the mindset of a community-no easy goal, but one which he accomplishes in availing himself of spiritual diaries, private correspondence, newspapers, parliamentary and church records, and pamphlets, among other valuable primary sources! This timely volume does not shy away from modern implications of the Aikenhead case. Graham has offered us not only a fine addition to the literature on seventeenth-century Scotland, but a portrait of contemporary life all the more vivid due to its relevance to debates we face over three centuries later. Although this book is of course focused on the clearances, it could make essential reading for any student or practitioner of history in how to write on a controversial topic. It is in this sense above all that the Highland Clearances are, as Eric Richards comments in his new book, 'a classic historical problem'. Because the issues at stake in the clearances were so basic to the formation of modern society, and because the economic and other forces then in conflict remain in conflict today in some of our planet's most crisis-ridden localities, there is not, and cannot be, anything approximating to a definitive verdict on the clearances. Debate, in other words, will continue. But if such debate is to yield more than endless contention, it needs to be well informed. Hence this book's value.

Edition details

• Publisher: Birlinn Ltd
• Publication date: 2000
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1841580406
• ISBN 13: 9781841580401
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 379