Book review: Independence or Union - Scotland’s Past and Scotland’s Present

TM DEVINE’s new book is an excellent guide to how Scottish nationalism has revived to become a threat to the integrity of the United Kingdom. 

Devine supported a ‘yes’ vote in the Scottish independence referendum, but his book is balanced in its judgements on Scotland’s historical development and contemporary politics, as one would expect from Scotland’s leading historian, and a model of clarity.

Support for the 1707 Union of Scotland and England was initially patchy. Anti-Union rebellions by the Jacobite supporters of the Stuart claim to the Scottish throne in 1715 and 1745 showed how divided Scotland was over the question of Union.