A traveller's history of Scotland

Scotland's story is chronicled by one of the country's best historians. Andrew Fisher begins with Scotland's first people and their culture and ends with the setting up of the first Scottish parliament since 1707. Before the arrival of the Vikings in 900, Scotland was a land of romantic kingdoms and saints. But later centuries of bloody strife lead up to the turbulent years of Mary Queen of Scots, the Calvinistic legacy of John Knox, and the bitterness of final defeat. The dreams of the Jacobites are contrasted with the cruel reality of the end of the Stewarts and the Act of Union with England. Scotland then saw an age of industry and despoliation. The result was much emigration and obsession with the nation's past which glorified the legends of the Highlander and the Clans. In this century, the loss of identity and drift to the south have perhaps been checked at last by Devolution, the setting up of a Scottish parliament, and the symbolic return of the Stone of Destiny.