Scotland Revisited

The professional study of history in Britain as in Europe began in the nineteenth century, and English-speaking historians have tended to concentrate on states then formed or forming. Serious study takes its centre of gravity from London, as from Berlin, Rome or Madrid. To this extent, Scotland has been as ill-served as Bavaria, Naples or Catalonia; and in Scotland’s case, the problem is compounded first by the fact that the relevant 'union' occurred long before those of 'Germany' and 'Italy', and second by the extent to which English experience had already accustomed its historians – on both sides of the border – to think more 'centrally' than those of any other European country. Such is the appeal of the greater rather than the lesser part that even the best history graduates from the Scottish universities, carefully nurtured in their student days on a diet of what is called 'British' but is actually English history, follow Dr Johnson's 'high road to England' when it comes to research; relatively few have resisted the lure.