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A Scottish historian travels along the cultural and geographical border of the Highlands in this "seductive travelogue" (Scottish Field).
Running from the northeast to the southwest of Scotland, the Highland Line is the most profound internal boundary in Britain. First recognized by the Roman general Agricola in the first century AD, it divides the country in many senses-signaling the border between Highland and Lowland; Celtic and English-speaking;...
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Hadrian's Wall is the largest and one of the most enigmatic historical monuments in Britain. Nothing else approaches its vast scale: a land wall running seventy-three miles from east to west and a sea wall stretching at least twenty-six miles down the Cumbrian coast. Many of its forts are as large as Britain's most formidable medieval castles, and the wide ditch dug to the south of the Wall, the vallum, is larger than any surviving prehistoric earthwork.
Built...
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[an] exploration of Scotland's past through the eyes of a scholarly hiker ... Magnificent' - New Statesman, Books of the Year
Fourteen centuries ago, Irish saints journeyed to the Hebrides and Scotland's Atlantic shore. They sought spiritual solitude in remote places, but their mission was also to spread the word of God to the peoples of Scotland. Columba was the most famous of these pioneers who rowed their curraghs towards danger and uncertainty...
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Five hundred million years of Scottish history from the author of Arthur and the Lost Kingdoms: "Deserves a prominent place in the history canon" (Scots Magazine).
Covering the Ice Age to the recent Scottish Referendum, the acclaimed historian and author explores the history of the Scottish nation. Focusing on key moments such as the Battle of Bannockburn and the Jacobite risings, Moffat also features other episodes in history that are perhaps less...
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Acclaimed historian Alistair Moffat sets off in the footsteps of the Highland clans. In thirteen journeys he explores places of conflict, recreating as he walks the tumult of battle. As he recounts the military prowess of the clans – surely the most feared fighting men in western Europe – he also speaks of their lives, their language and culture before it was all swept away. The disaster at Culloden in 1746 represented not just the defeat of the...
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An "exciting and dramatic" history of the raiders who ruled the lawless Anglo-Scottish borderlands for over a century (Cumberland News).
Nowhere else in Britain in the modern era, or indeed in Europe, did civil order break down over such a wide area, or for such a long time, as on the border country between Scotland and England. For more than a century, the hoofbeats of countless raiding parties drummed over the border. From Dumfriesshire to the...
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This local history tells the centuries-long story of a Scottish Borders town through its battles, traditions and transformations from prehistory to today.
Hawick, Scotland, is famous for its annual Common Riding festival, an equestrian tradition that traces its roots to the 16th century Battle of Hornshole. But in this lively history, Alistair Moffat takes the narrative much further back into the mists of prehistory, to the time of the Romans,...
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The Holy Grail, the kingdom of Camelot, the Knights of the Round Table, and the magical sword Excalibur are all key ingredients of the legends surrounding King Arthur. But who was he really, where did he come from, and how much of what we read about him in stories that date back to the Dark Ages is true? So far, historians have failed to show that King Arthur really existed at all, and for a good reason-they have been looking in the wrong place.
In...
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An almost limitless archive of our history lies hidden inside our bodies, and this book traces the ancient story of Scotland from that scientific viewpoint. The mushrooming of genetic studies, of DNA analysis, is rewriting history in spectacular fashion.
In Scotland: A Genetic Journey, Alistair Moffat explores the history that is printed on our genes, and in a remarkable new approach, uncovers the detail of where Scots are from, where they have journeyed,...