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Scotland and Nationalism: Scottish Society and Politics, 1707-2000

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I bet his answer would be "yes." But how would he define his nationalism? I wish he made his hopes on Scotland's future more clear. I for one can never understand why a brilliant nation with a distinct history of its own should have been absorbed into a political union with England a mere three hundred years ago. The basis for such a marriage of unequals doesn't seem very strong to me, and I don't see why proud Scots - who have much to be proud of - would want to continue being second-class citizens when so many banana republics with tiny populations (some less than a million) have their own seats at the UN. Go figure. The Danes and the Irish too are small nations, and they are treated as full, independent members at international conferences. It's time the Scots thought about their future, and this book is a good place to start on how they got into this mess in the first place. I would even go further back than Harvie: since when had the Scots been "British" before Union? Neither the Romans nor the Anglo-Saxons nor even the Normans could make Scots buckle under, and Harvie would do well to emphasise that too. The notion that a nation of mixed "races" cannot be a nation doesn't make sense to me: many Russians have non-Russian ancestries, and America is a nation of many races. Are these not independent countries? Scotland is a good deal less "mixed" than England. A million years ago ALL of us came from Africa anyway, so why aren't we one nation instead of 180 or whatever the number is at the UN? Why not 180, I say? The more the merrier. Why can't Scots be Scots?

This is definately the best book concerning Scottish Nationalism- detailed history and excellent insight. Without this I would have been lost on my thesis. If you are interested in Scottish politics, you should read this.