Scotland's influence was crucial for the worldwide success of Britain's overseas empire. As emigrants, soldiers, tobacco lords, merchants, and colonial administrators, Scots were involved in nearly every aspect of running and financing Britain's colonies in America, Australia, and India. T. M. Devine, Scotland's leading historian, draws on a wealth of new material to provide a comprehensive examination of Scotland's multifaceted role in colonization. He deftly portrays the key contributions by Scots to the development of the Americas, from political ideas to business. In the first of a two-volume set, Scotland's Empire combines detailed scholarship with a compelling narrative history, setting the Scots' story against the rise of the British Empire, the course of American history, and the changes in world history. 35 b/w illustrations.
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Book Description
An epic account of the influential role the Scots played in settling the English colonies of the Americas.
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Eminent historian Devine follows up his acclaimed The Scottish Nation, 1700–2000 with a masterful study of the role of Scotland in the making of the British Empire and the development of colonial America, and empire's impact on Scotland. Drawing on extensive and never-before available archival materials, he chronicles the Scots' contributions to the empire with their business savvy, their philosophical traditions and their political strengths. The Scots, for example, were among the first to realize the tremendous value of tobacco as an import crop, so began to regulate its growth in the colonies and administer its sales in the empire. Devine documents the emigration and successful establishment of Scots throughout Europe, a pattern they continued as they began their assimilation into the British Empire. In the colonies, their experience as bankers, traders and administrators stood them in good stead as they developed centers of commerce in South Carolina and eventually in Nova Scotia, Canada. Devine also points out the debt that Jefferson, Franklin, Madison and other founders felt to Scottish commonsense philosophers such as Francis Hutcheson, David Hume and Thomas Reid, whose "common philosophy" stood behind the Declaration of Independence's "self-evident truths." Devine's magisterial study places the history of Scotland in global perspective, emphasizing in thoroughly captivating prose the Scots' contributions. Maps.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
About the Author
T. M. Devine is University Research Professor and Director of Research at the Institute of Irish and Scottish Studies at the University of Aberdeen. He is a fellow of the British Academy and of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. Among his previous publications are the bestselling The Scottish Nation, The Tobacco Lords, The Great Highland Famine, and Improvement and Enlightenment. He lives in Aberdeen, Scotland.
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