'The Highland Clearances' stands out as one of the most emotive chapters in
the history of Scotland.
This book traces the origins of the Clearances from the 18th century to their
culmination in the crofting legislation of the 1880s. In considering both the
terrible suffering of the Highland people as well as the stark choices that
faced landowners during a people of rapid economic change, it shows how the
Clearances were one of many 'attempted' solutions to the problem of how to
maintain a population on marginal and infertile land, and were, in fact, part of
a wider European movement of rural repopulation.
In drawing attention away from the mythology to the hard facts of what
actually happened, 'The Highland Clearances' offers a balanced analysis of
events which created a terrible scar on the Highland and Gaelic imagination.
Contents:
Preface to the 2008 Edition
Preface
1. The Distant Coronach
2. Classic Highland Clearances: Glencalvie and Strathconan
3. The Highland Clearances and Rural Revolution
4. Parallels and Precedents
5. The Quiet March of the Sheep
6. The Insurrection of 1792
7. Aftermath and the Widening Sheep Empire
8. Clearing Sutherland: Lairg, Assynt and Kildonan 1807-13
9. Sensation in Strathnaver 1814-19
10. The Greatest Clearances: Strathnaver and Kildonan in 1818-19
11. The Last of the Sutherland Clearances
12. Sweeping the Highlands: The Middle Years - Lewis, Rum, Harris, Freswick and
Strathaird (Skye)
13. Colonel Gordon, Barra and the Uists
14. Trouble in the Islands: The Macdonald Estates in North Uist, Benbecula and
Skye
15. Frustrated Lairds and Bloody-Minded Crofters: Lewis, Durness and Coigach
16. Landlords Unrestrained: Knoydart and Greenyards
17. Nervous Landlords 1855-86
18. The Crofters' First Triumph
19. The Highland Clearances: Answers and Questions
Maps
Bibliography
Index
