Debating the Highland Clearances

Explore the debates surrounding the Highland Clearances and their place within Highland and British History.

The Highland Clearances generated a great deal of contemporary controversy and documentation.

The record comes in diverse forms and with radically different provenances, offering excellent material for exercises in historical analysis and selection.

The contemporary debate on the Clearances was vociferous and many-headed.

The debates among historians, novelists, politicians and economists are no less passionate and raise large questions about interpretation and the appropriate frame of reference for the continuing controversy.

Eric Richards leads readers through some of the thickets, exposes them to the heat of the debates, and extends their intellectual horizons in terms of the place of the Highland Clearances in modern Highland and British history.

He also raises the question of Highland 'exceptionalism'. "Documents and Debates in Scottish History" consists of concise books on important but compact themes which are also commonly studied subjects.

Each volume is divided into equal parts.The first describes the subject, sets it in context, and introduces the reader to the main issues of interpretation and debate.

The second contains a selection of relevant evidence, including material evidence if appropriate.

The two parts are linked by numerous cross-references.