Scottish Society, 1500–1800

The volume covers many of the most significant themes in pre-industrial Scottish society.

Robert Allen Houston (Edited by), Ian D. Whyte (Edited by)

9780521891677, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 18 April 2005

312 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.8 cm, 0.46 kg

In recent years scholars have begun to ask new and exciting questions about the lives of the ordinary people of Scotland in the centuries before the Industrial Revolution. The essays in this volume, written by some of the foremost figures in Scottish social history, cover many significant themes in pre-industrial Scottish society: poverty, diet, social organisation and change, urban development, population mobility and the status of women. The editors have provided an introductory overview of Scottish society analysing such topics as population, social structure, law and order, religion and popular culture. The approach throughout is a comparative one aimed at highlighting both the similarities and the distinctive features of Scottish society when compared with those of the rest of the British Isles and continental Europe. Two concluding chapters provide insights from specialists on Irish and English society into how Scotland fits into the context of 'British' social development.

List of tables
List of abbreviations
Introduction: Scottish society in perspective R. A. Houston and I. D. Whyte
1. Population mobility in early modern Scotland I. D. Whyte
2. Scottish food and Scottish history, 1500–1800 A. Gibson and T. C. Smout
3. Continuity and change in urban society, 1500–1700 M. Lynch
4. Women in the economy and society of Scotland, 1500–1800 R. A. Houston
5. Social responses to agrarian 'improvement': the Highland and Lowland clearances in Scotland T. M. Devine
6. 'Pretense of blude' and 'place of their dwelling': the nature of highland clans, 1500–1745 R. A. Dodgshon
7. North and south: the development of the gulf in Poor Law practice Rosalind Mitchison
8. Scotland and Ireland, 1600–1800: their role in the evolution of British society L. M. Cullen
9. Kindred adjoining kingdoms: an English perspective on the social and economic history of early modern Scotland K. E. Wrightson
Bibliography of printed sources and secondary works
Index.

Subject Areas: Early modern history: c 1450/1500 to c 1700 [HBLH], British & Irish history [HBJD1]