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The Mighty Scot: Nation, Gender, and the Nineteenth-Century Mystique of Scottish Masculinity (SUNY Series, Studies in the Long Nineteenth Century)

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"The Mighty Scot" is an interesting contribution to the cultural history of gender identity. It is a collection of essays on various aspects of Scotland in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Colonials and provincials sometimes react to the supposed snobbery of the metropolis by claiming to be rougher and tougher and more masculine. Martin demonstrates that the English considered Scottish males more macho, and lowland Scots considered Highland Scots more macho The theme is most clearly stated in the chapter on deer hunting, which is one of the most entertaining. Hunting deer is an unusual and up-market activity in Britain, and hunting on foot with guns was a novelty in the nineteenth century. Some of the accounts suggest that the hunters regarded themselves as in peril from the deer. Inept and cowardly English novices needed the help of virile highland Scottish guides to keep them out of danger.
Earlier chapters describe the way the Jacobite rebellion, in the eighteenth century, was romanticized in the nineteenth century. Two unreadable and one barely readable nineteenth century novels (The Master of Ballantrae, The Wizard's Son and Kidnapped) are given detailed and lengthy critiques with what academics call close readings to detect their underlying socio-economic and erotic meanings. A final chapter is mostly about early 20th century art in Glasgow, with a feminist emphasis.
Martin is a smooth and accomplished writer of enormous erudition, but the detail on some topics may be too great for a general reader. Those who already have a special interest in some of the subjects covered, such as Glasgow Style would be most likely to enjoy it.