Customer Reviews

The Small Isles: Canna, Rum, Eigg and Muck

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I visited Canna twice in 2003 during a one week sailing trip on a classical ship with the name Edda Frandsen. We also sailed close to Rum and Eigg and visited several of the outer islands. I have dear memories of the loneliness of the environment and I have been reading about its history ever since.

This book starts with prehistory and ends with the clearances and emigration. Most chapters start with a pretty short text followed by lengthy quotations from contemporary writers, a graph or a list of numbers. It is not an easy introduction into the history of the isles This is a book for people who already know the history of Scotland in general terms and are interested in as many bare facts as possible. I liked the way in which the Vikings assessed the value of farmland: "Ouncelands" and "Pennylands". I also liked the population statistics showing how densely populated these islands once were, how hard the life at subsistence level really was and how inevitable the decline. I enjoyed the book very much.