The Hated and the Dead: Alex Salmond
Tom Leeman; Global top 2.5%, LS36
A Short History of Scotland and England’s Union
Dan Snow’s History Hit; Global top 0.01%, LS75
Yesterday the UK Supreme Court unanimously ruled that the Scottish government is not allowed to hold a second independence referendum without Westminster’s agreement. It means, for now, Scotland will stay in the United Kingdom, though for how long is unclear. The union between the nations of Great Britain goes back to 1707. On each side of the border, statesmen started to realise that a closer relationship offered solutions to problems both countries were facing: Scotland needed economic security and England needed political safeguards against French attacks. In this episode, Scottish historian Professor Murray Pittock talks Dan through the benefits and cracks in this 300 year old union. Produced by Hannah Ward and edited by Dougal Patmore.
187. The Birth of Britain
Empire; Global Top 0.05%, LS66
With the accession of James I and VI in 1603, Scotland was assimilated into the composite monarchy of the United Kingdom. James, an eccentric, insecure and rambling figure, preoccupied with witches, was himself an alien in his new English court. Even at this stage though, it seems unlikely that the two nations would be legally combined under one parliament. But, with Scottish interests abroad constantly embattled by a lack of resources and the exclusionist attitude of its English neighbours; their flailing economy, and in-fighting, Scottish sovereignty within the composite monarchy began diminishing. As such, many in Scotland began resisting any union of the two nations with increasing desperation, while the English government – under the pro-union Queen Anne – in response redoubled their efforts to see the Scottish parliament subsumed…Was the union of Scotland and England now inevitable, or could a Scottish Referendum in 1706 protect Scottish independence? In this week’s episode, William and Anita are joined by renowned historian Murray Pittock to discuss the process by which Scotland was brought into Union with England, the condition of the new state, and the long term repercussions of this seminal moment for the future of Great Britain
Scotland: A Global History with Murray Pittock and WIlliam Dalrymple
Beyond Borders Scotland Podcast
In the light of recent debates about Scotland’s voice and role in international affairs, join acclaimed historian, broadcaster, and author of The Anarchy, William Dalrymple, as he talks to Professor Murray Pittock, the Bradley Professor of Literature at the University of Glasgow, about Scotland’s role in the making of the modern world, as they discussed and unpick Pittock’s mesmerising book Scotland: The Global History: 1603 To the Present. Whether you’re an expert in history or simply curious about Scotland’s imprint and place in the world, both past and present, this erudite episode between two historians at the top of their game is for you. Hosted by Catherine Maxwell-Stuart from Traquair House, their deep dive into Scotland’s rich global history provides us with fresh insights not only into the shaping of the modern world and economy but how Scotland got to where it is today.
Murray Pittock, Scotland: The Global History, 1603 to the Present (Yale UP, 2022)
New Books in Western European Studies
Scotland: A Global History (Yale University Press, 2022) by Prof. Murray Pittock presents an engaging and authoritative history of Scotland’s influence in the world and the world’s on Scotland, from the Thirty Years War to the present day. Scotland is one of the oldest nations in the world, yet by some it is hardly counted as a nation at all. Neither a colony of England nor a fully equal partner in the British union, Scotland’s history has often been seen as simply a component part of British history. But the story of Scotland is one of innovation, exploration, resistance—and global consequence. In this wide-ranging, deeply researched account, Murray Pittock examines the place of Scotland in the world. Pittock explores Scotland and Empire, the rise of nationalism, and the pressures on the country from an increasingly monolithic understanding of “Britishness.” From the Thirty Years’ War to Jacobite risings and today’s ongoing independence debates, Scotland and its diaspora have undergone profound changes. This ground-breaking account reveals the diversity of Scotland’s history and shows how, after the country disappeared from the map as an independent state, it continued to build a global brand. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose doctoral work focused on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts.
The Invention of Britain #4 – so many different little corners!
How to Invent a Country
Scotland, England, Ireland, Wales – why all these borders, and what do they mean?
Scotland Reborn: The importance of the year 1967 to the future of the United Kingdom
The Highland Clearances
In Our Time; Global Top 0.05%, LS67
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss how and why Highlanders and Islanders were cleared from their homes in waves in C18th and C19th, following the break up of the Clans after the Battle of Culloden. Initially, landlords tried to keep people on their estates for money-making schemes, but the end of the Napoleonic Wars brought convulsive changes. Some of the evictions were notorious, with the sudden and fatal burning of townships, to make way for sheep and deer farming. For many, migration brought a new start elsewhere in Britain or in the British colonies, while for some it meant death from disease while in transit. After more than a century of upheaval, the Clearances left an indelible mark on the people and landscape of the Highlands and Western Isles. Producer: Simon Tillotson.
The Enclosures of the 18th Century
In Our Time; Global Top 0.05%, LS 67
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the enclosure movement of the 18th and 19th centuries. In the early 19th century, the Northamptonshire poet John Clare took a good look at the countryside and didn’t like what he saw. He wrote: “Fence meeting fence in owners little bounds / Of field and meadow, large as garden-grounds, / In little parcels little minds to please, / With men and flocks imprisoned, ill at ease.” Enclosure means literally enclosing a field with a fence or a hedge to prevent others using it. This seemingly innocuous act triggered a revolution in land holding that dispossessed many, enriched a few but helped make the agricultural and industrial revolutions possible. It saw the dominance of private property as the model of ownership, as against the collective rights of previous generations. For some Enclosure underpinned the economic and agricultural development of Modern Britain. But it has also been a cause celebre for the political left ever since Karl Marx argued that enclosures created the industrialised working class and ushered in the capitalist society. What really happened during the era of 18th and 19th century enclosures? Who gained, who lost and what role did Enclosures play in the agricultural and industrial transformation of this country? With Rosemary Sweet, Director of the Centre for Urban History at the University of Leicester; Murray Pittock, Bradley Professor of English Literature at the University of Glasgow; Mark Overton, Professor of Economic and Social History at the University of Exeter.
Empiricism
In Our Time
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Empiricism, England’s greatest contribution to philosophy. At the end of the seventeenth century the philosopher John Locke wrote in his Essay Concerning Human Understanding: “All ideas come from sensation or reflection. Let us then suppose the mind to be, as we say, white paper, void of all characters, without any ideas:- How comes it to be furnished? Whence comes it by that vast store which the busy and boundless fancy of man has painted on it with an almost endless variety? Whence has it all the materials of reason and knowledge? To this I answer, in one word, from EXPERIENCE. ”It was a body of ideas that for Voltaire, and for Kant after him, defined the English attitude to thought; a straight talking pragmatic philosophy that was hand in glove with a practical people. How was the philosophy of empiricism developed in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries? And what effect did this emphasis on experience have on culture and literature in Britain? With Judith Hawley, Senior Lecturer in English at Royal Holloway, University of London; Murray Pittock, Professor of Scottish and Romantic Literature at the University of Manchester; Jonathan Rée, philosopher and author of Philosophy and its Past.
The Jacobites: everything you wanted to know
History Extra podcast; Global Top 0.01%, LS70
Murray Pittock answers listener questions about the Jacobites, and their attempts to restore the Stuart dynasty to the throne. Speaking to Emma Slattery Williams, he discusses who the Jacobites were, why their risings failed, and how realistic the hit show Outlander is in its portrayal of the Jacobite cause. Hosted on Acast.
1745: Raising the Jacobite Standard at Glenfinnan
Love Scotland: Stories of Scotland’s History and Nature; Global top 2%, LS37
19 August 2020 marks the 275th anniversary of the Raising of the Jacobite Standard by Charles Edward Stuart at Glenfinnan. Professor Murray Pittock, Trustee and history advisor to the National Trust for Scotland, takes Jackie Bird through this hugely important moment in Scotland’s history.
The Jacobite Rebellion
In Our Time; Global Top 0.01%, LS74
Melvyn Bragg and guests discusses the Jacobite Rebellion. In the summer of 1745, a young man in a small French frigate landed on the West Coast of Scotland. It was Bonnie Prince Charlie who began his campaign to become king of Scotland and England. He had seven followers amongst his shipmates and took to the Highlands to raise an army from the Scottish clans: “The Highland clans with sword in hand Frae John o Groats tae Airlie / Hae tae a man declared to stand / Or fa wi Royal Charlie”. Or so the old Jacobite song goes. But why was the latest scion of the Stuart dynasty such a favourite with the Scottish Highlanders? And did Bonnie Prince Charlie ever have a real chance of gaining the throne of England?
Bonnie Prince Charlie
Dan Snow’s History Hit; Global Top 0.01%, LS75
In August 1745 Bonnie Prince Charlie led a rebellion that brought the Jacobite cause closer to seizing the throne than almost any other. He had landed with only a handful of his most trusted supporters but a mixture of gold, charisma and old loyalties soon brought a large number of followers to his side as they attempted to overthrow the British crown. The rebellion grew in momentum with early successes on the battlefield and marched south reaching as far as Derby before turning back north. However, the noose around the Bonny Prince Charlie and the Jacobite rebels was tightening and in April 1746 they were decisively defeated by superior British forces at the Battle of Culloden. Guiding Dan through the 1745 uprising is Professor Murray Pittock from the University of Glasgow. Murray provides a comprehensive overview of what the Jacobites wanted, the events of the revolt and the fate of its leader Bonnie Prince Charlie.
Scottish Clans
Dan Snow’s History Hit; Global top 0.01%, LS75
It is believed clans started to emerge in Scotland around 1100AD and were originally the descendants of kings – if not of demigods from Irish mythology. As well as kinship and a sense of identity and belonging, being part of a clan was an important part of survival throughout the centuries that would follow. Scotland’s leading cultural historian, Professor Murray Pittock, joins Dan on the podcast to share the history of the clans from their Celtic origins through to the Clearances and the present day. They discuss the structure of clans, how the system collapsed and the paradox of how global clanship has become today. This episode was produced by Hannah Ward, the audio editor was Dougal Patmore.
Scottish clans: everything you wanted to know
History Extra podcast; Global top 0.05%, LS70 (Listen Notes)
What do we mean by the word ‘clan’? Were these Scottish kinship groups more often allies or enemies? And did they really wear tartan? Speaking with Emily Briffett, Professor Murray Pittock tackles popular search queries and listener questions about Scottish clans. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
The Scottish Clans Podcast; Global Top 1.5%, LS42 (Listen Notes)
The Glencoe Massacre
BBC Podcasts: In Our Time; Global Top 0.01%, LS74
Melvyn Bragg and guests Karin Bowie, Murray Pittock and Daniel Szechi discuss the Glencoe Massacre of 1692, why it happened, and its lasting repercussions.On a winter night in 1692, a company of soldiers quartered with the MacDonalds of Glencoe rose early and slaughtered their hosts. About 38 men, women and children were killed. Their homes were torched and many survivors died as they fled into the snow. This mass killing was branded by a Scottish Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry as ‘murder under trust’.Why did this still infamous atrocity happen? The answer takes in the seismic impact of the Glorious Revolution of 1688 and the ongoing struggles for religious power that swept through the country in the 17th century. Crucially, Britain was at war in Europe, and the distracting nature of the conflict in Scotland, as far as the London government was concerned, helped to give the events at Glencoe their particular character. But this is also a story of a deadline and the fatal consequences of the Glencoe MacDonalds’ attempts to meet it – and of how their technical failure to do so was exploited.The Glencoe Massacre had a severe impact on the reputation of the government of the Protestant King William III, who had ousted the Catholic James II with the support of the English and Scottish Parliaments only four years earlier. Some historians contend that it pushed the two states along the road to the Act of Union of 1707.
Robert Burns
BBC Podcasts: In Our Time; Global Top 0.01%, LS74
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the work of the man who, in his lifetime, was called The Caledonian Bard and whose fame and influence was to spread around the world. Burns (1759-1796) was born in Ayrshire and his work as a tenant farmer earned him the label The Ploughman Poet, yet it was the quality of his verse that helped his reputation endure and grow. His work inspired other Romantic poets and his personal story and ideas combined with that, giving his poems a broad strength and appeal – sung by revolutionaries and on Mao’s Long March, as well as on New Year’s Eve and at Burns Suppers.
Producer: Simon Tillotson
Free Thinking – Tales of Scotland: A Nation and its Literature
Arts & Ideas; Global top 0.5%; LS54 (Listen Notes)
Anne McElvoy discusses the ways Scottish writers negotiate what it means to be Scottish with Janice Galloway, Kathleen Jamie, Peter Mackay and Murray Pittock.
Murray Pittock 