Provides a key focus for the ongoing debate regarding Scotland's future. This book is drawn from research and exploring everything from the high politics of the devolved parliament to the everyday effects of huge and growing levels of social inequality. It features debates on the possibilities of Scottish independence.
The question 'who are we?' continues to perplex many Scots today. The 100 short essays in this book help to expand the debate and provide at least some of the answers. They offer an opportunity to penetrate behind the statistical surveys and explore the rich complexity of changing identity from a varied range of opinion.The collection includes the views of people at the centre of things as well as those at the margins of society, the famous as well as the not so well known, the authoritative and mainstream as well as the idiosyncratic. It also contains a few views 'from the outside', from North America, Europe and elsewhere.It examines the concept and experience of being Scottish at this time in history and assesses its relevance, strengths, advantages and weaknesses. It seeks to discover whether there is a special something which makes the Scottish distinctive and immediately recognisable and, if so, attempts to describe it. In short it is a snapshot of Scottish identity or, as seems to the case,
In 1999, for the first time since 1707, a Scottish parliament took substantial control of the national destiny. And here, for the first time in a generation, is a trenchant single-volume overview of Scotland's last three centuries.