I was sorely tempted to judge this book by its cover. The ‘Scotland’ of the title is large, bold, and confident. The subtitle ‘The Global History 1603 to the Present’ is there in diminuendo, unassuming and easy to miss. This encapsulates the volume’s central tension: how is it possible to write the global history of a single nation? How can the emphasis of the first project on boundaryless movement, circulation, and exchange be made to play nicely with the second genre’s preoccupation with distinctiveness, peculiarities, and place?
...
(read more)
