Present and Past of the Scottish Highlands the culture, regions and councils. The battles, the massacre's and the bloodsheds, portrayed in history books. These Highland Clearances as they were called, were sometimes performed with great force. Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey, Isle of Skye and Lochaber. The Clearances were not a single event, but a long process that changed the nature of Highland life and moved people off the land to new towns along the coast, or forced them to emigrate overseas. At the root of the Clearances was the destruction of the clan system following the failue of the Second.
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This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1883 edition. Excerpt: ... REPLY TO MRS. BEECHER STOWE'S 'SUNNY MEMORIES.' [Abridged.] Macleod here apologises for his style in the following terms: --' I am quite aware that...more
Published September 12th 2013 by Theclassics.Us (first published 1883)
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May 09, 2013Bettie rated it really liked it · review of another edition Shelves: victorian, paper-read, published-1883, nonfiction, britain-scotland, epistolatory-diary-blog, one-penny-wonder, under-10-ratings, history, winter-20142015
Foreword by John Prebble
The author: Alexander Mackenzie, FSA Scot (1838 - 22 January 1898) was a Scottish historian, author, magazine editor and politician. He was born on a croft, in Gairloch. In 1869 he settled in Inverness, where he later became an editor and publisher of the Celtic Magazine, and the Scottish Highlander. Mackenzie wrote numerous clan histories. He was a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland. In 1894, the Gaelic Society of Inverness elected Mackenzie as an 'Honorary...more
Dec 14, 2013Emma marked it as to-read · review of another edition
This is one of very few written accounts of the Highland Clearances. It's out of copyright and can be downloaded free and legally here: https://archive.org/details/historyof...
For further reading, another great book about the Clearances is 'The Highland Clearances' by John Prebble. It's available at Amazon, the Book Depository and others.
For further reading, another great book about the Clearances is 'The Highland Clearances' by John Prebble. It's available at Amazon, the Book Depository and others.
Jan 13, 2011Linda rated it really liked it · review of another edition
Keep in mind this was written in the late 19th century. It is a sad commentary on an untold story of how many came to the new world from Scotland.
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Alexander Mackenzie (1838 - 1898) was a Scottish writer, historian, politician and magazine editor.
In 1861 Mackenzie became apprenticed in the clothes trade selling Scottish cloth in Colchester. In 1869 he settled in Inverness, where he and his brother set up a clothes shop in Clach na Cudainn House. From his business premises he derived his nickname 'Clach na Cudainn' or simply 'Clach'. He later...more
In 1861 Mackenzie became apprenticed in the clothes trade selling Scottish cloth in Colchester. In 1869 he settled in Inverness, where he and his brother set up a clothes shop in Clach na Cudainn House. From his business premises he derived his nickname 'Clach na Cudainn' or simply 'Clach'. He later...more
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In the terrible aftermath of the moorland battle of Culloden, the Highlanders suffered at the hands of their own clan chiefs. Following his magnificent reconstruction of Culloden, John Prebble recounts how the Highlanders were deserted and then betrayed into famine and poverty. While their chiefs grew rich on meat and wool, the people died of cholera and starvation or, evi...more
Published May 31st 1969 by Penguin Books Ltd (first published 1963)
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Apr 21, 2018Jan-Maat added it Shelves: politics-and-polemic, modern-history, british-isles, 20th-century
Well to start with I picked this up by mistake, that's not true, I picked it up quite deliberately, as a rule books don't slip into my hands accidentally, but there was a case of mistaken identity. The weather decided to ignore Chaucer and instead of drought piercing showers smiled sunshine and warmth. Naturally this inclines the heart to a mild temper and cheerfulness, both frightful tendencies to be guarded against. Spotting this book I assumed it was Glencoe by the same author - the tale of a...more
Apr 12, 2016Colin rated it it was amazing · review of another edition
There is something wrong in the British education system if a person can reach my age and have virtually no knowledge of this whole affair, that lasted over a hundred years and involved the removal of poor people from the Highlands of Scotland. It isn't told as part of the working class struggle, nor as the progress of the industrial revolution - it seems to have been kept secret from our history. So this book was a great revelation to me, I'm afraid to say. What was most disturbing was the cros...more
If you are in a really cheerful mood and want to feel depressed, this is just the book for you.
After the 1745 rebellion, the Highland chiefs, due to the way society had changed, no longer needed to be able to raise large numbers of fighting men. They figured out that by running sheep on their land they could make a lot more money than by accepting the relatively low rents paid by their tenants. So guess what? The tenants had to go. Some were forced to the coasts, to take up fishing - of which th...more
After the 1745 rebellion, the Highland chiefs, due to the way society had changed, no longer needed to be able to raise large numbers of fighting men. They figured out that by running sheep on their land they could make a lot more money than by accepting the relatively low rents paid by their tenants. So guess what? The tenants had to go. Some were forced to the coasts, to take up fishing - of which th...more
Jul 22, 2016Dawn Dorsey rated it really liked it
This is a thorough history of a little-known chapter of Scottish history, covering the sixty-year period when the clansmen were evicted by the thousands from their ancestral lands in the Scottish Highlands and Islands, to make room for the more lucrative pasturage of sheep for lowland farmers.
Following the bloody defeat of the highland army at Culloden in 1746, the English crushed highland society and seized the property of the rebellious Chiefs. When their lands and titles were restored forty...more
Following the bloody defeat of the highland army at Culloden in 1746, the English crushed highland society and seized the property of the rebellious Chiefs. When their lands and titles were restored forty...more
The first 50-75 pages are a little dense on the financial reasons why the highlands were cleared. But you do need to know the bottom-line, monetary motivation of the land owners to make you truly appreciate the horror of people getting forced off their land to be replaced by sheep. Made me cry/get very angry at how people treat each other.
Feb 27, 2018Rosalind added it
Lochaber no more
Sutherland no more
Lewis no more
Skye no more
— C&C Reid
Scotland is currently much exercised about its history, and in particular whether what took place between the middle of the 18th century and the middle of the 19th century constituted a genocide. We have become accustomed these days to thinking of genocide as involving a systematic industrial extermination programme, as in the Endlösung of the Nazis or the mass killings of Tutsi in Rwanda in the 1990s. By those standards th...more
Sutherland no more
Lewis no more
Skye no more
— C&C Reid
Scotland is currently much exercised about its history, and in particular whether what took place between the middle of the 18th century and the middle of the 19th century constituted a genocide. We have become accustomed these days to thinking of genocide as involving a systematic industrial extermination programme, as in the Endlösung of the Nazis or the mass killings of Tutsi in Rwanda in the 1990s. By those standards th...more
Descredited bunk, written at a time when the serious study of Scottish history was in its infancy, by an Englishman who was not an historian, but a member of the Communist Party, with a political agenda.
If you really want to know what happened, read Sir T. M. Devine's 'The Scottish Clearances: A History of the Dispossessed'.
If you really want to know what happened, read Sir T. M. Devine's 'The Scottish Clearances: A History of the Dispossessed'.
I didn't give this the 4 stars it deserves as a history because it's not an easy read. It's case-based, but very dense, and though personal and emotive, I found it very hard to read in more than very short bursts. I bought it for research purposes and it certainly did the job on that - lots of meat on the causes and effects of the Clearances, and enough context to give you a good head start on such a difficult subject. I wasn't reading this to get a fuller understanding of the Clearances as a hi...more
Apr 25, 2011Lynn rated it it was ok
The author's case-by-case recounting of this tragic episode in Scotland's history was informative, and his sources are good, but I felt his tone was more that of a novelist than an historian. There is very little attempt at objectivity or finding truth that might not always jive with popular perception. There are much better books on this topic.
Nov 05, 2014Richard Thomas rated it it was amazing
It's a harrowing story of aristocratic arrogance clearing people off land they had held for centuries for sheep. The clearances broke the bond of mutual obligation that had held highland society together and still scar today. Prebble's sympathies are obvious (and shared by this writer).
An excellent book on the subject. I have read and re-read his books and own most of them. Interesting and readable, you don't want to put his books down.
I started reading enthusiastically, willing to learn (which I have) and buoyed by the Author's engaging writing style, however as the book progressed a common theme emerged: he increasingly offered his own view on how the Highlanders should feel towards their Chiefs. When mentioning the lack of hostility towards them by their clansmen he, 100-150 years after the events, offered his judgements that the Chiefs do not deserve the love of their people. With these personal comments made so long after...more
I had heard of the Highland Clearances but knew little about them previously. I had assumed that they were an extension of the brutality meted out by Cumberland's Royalist army after the Battle of Culloden. I hadn't realised that they clearances went on for so long or saw so many Highland people driven from their homes and homeland. John Prebble's book charts very effectively this shameful chapter of our history drawing on contemporary accounts of the privations visited upon a population who wan...more
May 15, 2017Peter Harrison rated it liked it
A polemic against the Highland clearances. An interesting read for those who might be tempted to think that the English involvement in Scotland has always been benign, and a counter to 'traditional' readings of British history. It sits in roughly the same camp as 'Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee' but isn't quite so well written.
This is not an attempt at even-handed history but is a straight out denunciation of how the Highlands were cleared of people. It is sometimes a struggle, and the parade of...more
This is not an attempt at even-handed history but is a straight out denunciation of how the Highlands were cleared of people. It is sometimes a struggle, and the parade of...more
Dec 19, 2016Stuart rated it really liked it
I decided to read this after having seen The Cheviot, The Stag, and the Black Black Oil at Dundee Rep theatre. It's not an easy read, as it's page after page of the historical abuses of the landed classes against the people of the Highlands, their livelihoods, and their culture. I found that this history filled out the background to Iain Crichton Smith's Consider the Lilies, which I had read earlier this year.
This is one of those books I had to put down occasionally because it made me so mad. There is no group in history without blood on its hands, and this is the story of one such group. The 'proprietors' (Lowland land owners) forced the Scottish Highlanders out of their homes to make room for sheep. Greed has done so much in history. I love the irony that the Australian descendants of those forced to emigrate eventually raised sheep that ruined the market for the sheep grown in the Highlands.
Nov 04, 2017Elizabeth Gates rated it it was amazing
I love Prebble's vivid style. He tells history through story - how digestible is that? And I'm convinced of the fairness of his scholarship. Others may not be but his is a view and it may promote their own scholarship. What's not to like?
Well written account of economic upheaval perpetrated at the cost of lives and welfare of indigenous Highland Scots.
How the Highlanders were brutally cleared from the land in favor of sheep.
Aug 31, 2018Jamie Bowen rated it it was ok
An incredible piece of British History, a shameful episode. First published in the 60s, the writing style can sometimes make it a difficult read but you certainly get the story.
Billy Connolly has spoken of the wonder of the open landscape of Scotland: The brilliant thing is that there's no-one there! I wouldn't demur, as I like solitude as much as the next empty seat, but I know that Billy is enough of a scholar to understand that this is not the whole story. Indeed, much of upland Britain is not in its natural ecological climax state, which would mostly be forest and temperate rain-forest but is instead near-barren, sheep-burnt coarse turf and heather as far as the ey...more
Apr 30, 2015Toby rated it liked it
In the sixty or so years between 1790 and 1850 the tenant-farming population of the Scottish Highlands were evicted - often brutally so - from their ancient homelands, forming a diaspora across the world and denuding the already barren landscape of the north of Scotland of such settlements as existed. This is a story little known south of the border but forms an important and tragic part of Scotland's history. John Prebble's classic book on the clearances shows passion, poetry and a good deal of...more
I got lost amongst the names and places a few times, and it's not completely chronological, but for the most part, John Prebble makes it very easy and interesting to read about what happened in the north highlands in the hundred years following the Battle of Culloden. He conveys respect, reverence and a bit of indignation for the rich and tragic history of that beautiful and, now understandably, remote part of the country.
Jul 22, 2013Gemma rated it it was ok
I really wanted to learn about the Clearances as it is something that hadn't been covered at school. This book didn't add much to my knowledge. There was a lot of information in it but it was so dry that I haven't retained any of it. It's not laid out in a way that you could just use it as a reference book but as prose it is just such a trudge to get through.
I found this a slow, difficult read and wasn't able to finish it. I appreciated that Prebble was trying to give a 360 degree perspective on the Clearances but somewhere the story lost its impetus and I stopped reading.
Jul 08, 2007Julie rated it really liked it
A hard-hitting tale of the History of the Scottish Highlands and the misery and starvation and abandonment of the Highlanders,some of the forced to emigrate to the USA and Canada. If you are interested in history,this should suit you.
Land possession in Scotland parallels land possession in South Africa. With an emphasizes on the international role of 'capital' as the driver of globalisation.
A university text from the 70's
I found this book very interesting from start
Jun 21, 2018Colette Stine rated it really liked it
It's difficult to rate this book as it's a superbly written account of an infuriating and heartrending chapter in history.
Few people, it seems, are aware of the events known as the Highland Clearances, but they should be. We all should be.
Culloden was disastrous for the Highlanders on many levels, and not just the obvious. The world for many thousands of them was soon to change, irrevocably and not for the better.
Lairds became removed from their clans, spending their time in cities instead of on...more
Few people, it seems, are aware of the events known as the Highland Clearances, but they should be. We all should be.
Culloden was disastrous for the Highlanders on many levels, and not just the obvious. The world for many thousands of them was soon to change, irrevocably and not for the better.
Lairds became removed from their clans, spending their time in cities instead of on...more
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John Edward Curtis Prebble, FRSL, OBE was an English/Canadian journalist, novelist, documentarian and historian. He is best known for his studies of Scottish history.
He was born in Edmonton, Middlesex, England, but he grew up in Saskatchewan, Canada, where his father had a brother. His parents emigrated there after World War I. Returning to England with his family, he attended the Latymer School....more
He was born in Edmonton, Middlesex, England, but he grew up in Saskatchewan, Canada, where his father had a brother. His parents emigrated there after World War I. Returning to England with his family, he attended the Latymer School....more