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Thomas Paine is rightly regarded as among the most influential of English political iconoclasts. His two best-known works – Common Sense (1776) and Rights of Man (1791) – ensured his remarkable success in positioning himself, both literally and literarily, at the forefront of both the American and French revolutions. It is no exaggeration that Paine’s works lie at the heart of popular revolutionary sentiment as it came to express itself in the later eighteenth century. For that reason they were regarded at one level as manifestos of the crying need for social and political change, but at the same time by government and the law as dangerous instruments of sedition and republicanism.
In this new title from Aberdeen University Press, Dr Ronald Crawford explores how, in both Scotland and America, Paine’s brand of radicalism took particular hold, though only for a limited period – the ‘Age of Paine’.
Part One of the book explores American themes discoverable in the works of Francis Hutcheson, David Hume, Adam Smith and Adam Ferguson; the explosive political impact within Scotland of Rights of Man (1776); and how Scottish precedents, through the writings of Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson, helped shape the educational system of the early United States.
Part Two examines the careers of four Scots emigrants who made distinguished contributions to the American ideal of liberty: the ‘bookman’ Robert Aitken who employed Paine as contributing editor of his Pennsylvania Magazine; John Witherspoon, President of the College of New Jersey, one of the signatories to the Declaration of Independence in 1776; the radical poet, Alexander Wilson, whose (very different) Scottish and American careers are re-examined with the help of newly found original sources; and the lawyer from Fife, James Wilson, another signer, whose remarkable contributions to the evolution of the US Constitution are considered from the point of view of his indebtedness to numerous Scottish sources.
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This is the first book to examine the work of Austin Clarke (1896-1974) in the light of modern critical and theoretical perspectives. Clarke was one of Ireland's major writers whose career was devoted as much to fiction, drama and autobiography as to poetry.
Kit Fryatt assesses Clarke's work in its entirety but focuses on key works which reveal how resourcefully Clarke explored themes such as the coherence of the personality, the inner lives of women and the roots of repression.
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Professor David Carey Miller (1941–2016) held the Chair of Property Law at the University of Aberdeen, and in that capacity inspired generations of students to explore a range of questions and problems that interested him. Among his eclectic writings, his contributions to comparative law, Scots Property law and to land reform in South Africa were recognised as being of particular importance in his lifetime.
In Northern Lights: Essays in Private Law in Memory of Professor David Carey Miller, colleagues, friends and students of Professor Carey Miller seek to honour his memory by advancing those core lines of enquiry that featured so prominently in his research. Some, writing on comparative law, display the remarkably different consequences that follow from the divergent ways in which the civilian and the common law traditions classify legal questions, problems and claims. Others, writing on land law in South Africa and Scotland, reflect on changing concepts of “ownership”. For example, it is suggested at one point that landowners in Scotland are increasingly expected to do something productive or useful with their land in order to continue as owners. Still other contributors focus on Scots law, a system that has traditionally been seen as “mixed”, that is to say influenced by both the civilian and the common law traditions. Research into Scots Private law draws attention to the merits of rigorous research into core principles of the legal system, so as to facilitate the deduction of answers to new legal questions when they arise. In addition, some writers explore the use of established legal principles to evaluate proposed changes to the law in response to factors such as changing and social commercial reality. All of the essays in the volume seek to pay tribute to a great friend and scholar.
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Wounded in battle, ringleader of an officers’ mutiny, survivor of a mauling by a tiger, candidate in a Parliamentary by-election – Patrick ‘Tiger’ Duff (1742–1803) had an eventful life. The son of a Speyside tenant farmer, he rose to the rank of General in the East India Company army and retired to a country estate near Turriff. He made a fortune in India, in part because of his family connections with the Gordons of Letterfourie. James and Alexander Gordon were successful wine merchants in Madeira. They not only provided for Patrick’s education, but also employed his brothers James and Robert in the wine trade. In turn, Patrick was able to win business for the partnership amongst the hard-drinking British in India.
Scottish merchants, such as the Gordons, were an important part of the British merchant community in Madeira. Wealth from both sources, the empire of conquest in India and the empire of commerce exemplified by Madeira, flowed back into Scotland and fuelled the process of agricultural improvement.
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For almost three hundred years, when Catholicism was illegal in Scotland, southern Germany was host to communities of Scottish Benedictine monks. From the Reformation onwards Scots went to monasteries run by their own countrymen in Bavaria, Franconia and Thuringia in order to take up life in a religious order.
Throughout their stay in the lands of the Holy Roman Emperor the concern of these Scots Benedictines was to support and engage in the missionary activities of the Catholic Church in Scotland. Almost inevitably, however, they became involved in German political life in part through being active participants in their hosts’ counter-Reformation.
They became witnesses to and minor participants in a number of major cataclysmic events including the Thirty Years’ War, the War of Austrian Succession, the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars all of which threatened their continued existence. However, their survival and prosperity came to depend on the strong networks of support developed by Scots at home and in continental Europe.
From the late seventeenth through to the nineteenth century the monasteries were able to engage energetically in the provision of education not only for their fellow Scots but for their German hosts. Efforts in this regard led to their making significant contributions to the wider European Enlightenment movement – a fact that has long been known in Germany although almost unrecognised elsewhere.
A Saltire in the German Lands is an attempt to bring their achievements to the wider audience they deserve.
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Scotland’s Forgotten Treasure is a detailed study of the aesthetics and the religious vision of the fantasy works written by nineteenth-century Scottish novelist, George MacDonald. MacDonald’s Phantastes (1858) and Lilith (1895) are the origin of much modern fantasy writing, and Colin Manlove brings to bear on MacDonald’s major achievements decades of study in fantasy literature to unlock the structures that govern MacDonald’s imagination and the relevance of his works to contemporary religious and scientific thought.
Manlove reveals in MacDonald’s works a depth and complexity that establishes them as among the the most original works of nineteenth-century literature, and a treasure that should be the centrepiece of any account of nineteenth-century Scottish fiction.
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Professor Angelo Forte (1949–2012) held the Chair of Commercial Law at the University of Aberdeen between 1993 and 2010. During that time, he made significant scholarly contributions to commercial law, Scots private law and legal history. As a commercial lawyer and a former solicitor, he was committed to the production of high quality research that could engage with the needs of business and commerce. He was also particularly interested in exploring the extent to which legal change had occurred as the result of purely practical considerations, such as alterations in commercial reality. In this regard he advanced our understanding of the infl uence of English law in eighteenthcentury Scotland. Latterly he also advanced our understanding of laws that seem to have been applied among some of the Gaelic-speaking peoples of Scotland almost a thousand years ago. His eclectic writings were highly esteemed both at home and abroad. His rigour as a scholar proved inspirational to several generations of students, and it also led to a wide range of international collaborations.
In Continuity, Change and Pragmatism in the Law, several of Angelo’s former students and colleagues seek to honour his memory by advancing lines of scholarly enquiry that he pursued. As indicated by the title of the book, a range of contributors reflect on the ways in which the purely practical or pragmatic concerns of lawyers can shape legal change. The ground covered in the book – ranging from medieval legal history to the reform of credit rating agencies – reflects the great eclecticism of Angelo’s own interests. It is hoped that this will form a fitting tribute to a great gentleman and scholar.
Book DetailsProfessor Robert Frost writes: the sixth and final volume of The Diary of General Patrick Gordon of Auchleuchries is in some ways the most significant of all. It covers the vital period in which Peter the Great launched his challenge to the traditional Russian system and set Russia on the path to great power status. Gordon played a central role in two of the great dramas of these years: the successful siege and defence of Azov, which firmly established Russian power on the Caspian Sea, and the crushing of the Revolt of the Streltsy, the most dangerous early challenge to Peter’s reforms. Gordon’s diary gives unparalleled insight into these dramatic events and adds much to our knowledge of one of the most significant and charismatic rulers in Russian history. Gordon tells the story with characteristic detachment and a wealthof detail. As a diarist he ranks with Samuel Pepys, and the publication of Volume VI marks the completion of a project for which Dmitry Fedosov and Paul Dukes deserve to be congratulated. After three centuries, the original text of a hugely important historical work, and what can also be seen to be a significant literary achievement, is fully available for the first time.
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Conversations with Scottish Poets presents fourteen interviews conducted by Italian literary critic and translator Marco Fazzini since the 1980s. By asking the same or similar questions of Scottish poets of different generations, the interviews provide insight both into the ideas and working methods of the individual poets and also into the ways in which the poets’ relationship with their country and its languages have changed between the twentieth and twentyfirst centuries.
The poets interviewed are Norman MacCaig, Sorley Maclean, Edwin Morgan, Derick Thomson, Iain Crichton Smith, Alasdair Gray, Kenneth White, Douglas Dunn, Valerie Gillies, Christopher Whyte, John Burnside, David Kinloch, Robert Crawford and Don Paterson. The. interviews are illustrated with portraits of the poets by Itlian artists Franco Dugo, Paolo Annibali, Nicola Nannini and Doriano Scazzosi.
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Herbert Grierson was only 28 when he was appointed Professor of English Literature at the University of Aberdeen in 1895; in the following quarter of a century he established himself as the most distinguished literary critic of his time: first, by the publication in 1912 of his edition of the poetry of the then little acknowledged seventeenth-century English poet John Donne, and subsequently by his influential anthology of The Metaphysical Poets, published in 1919. Because of Grierson, Donne became the most admired poet of some of the twentieth-century’s most influential poets, and the ‘Metaphysicals’ became the model for many of the most radical developments in twentieth-century poetry.
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