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This is a study of the physical transformation of Edinburgh in the nineteenth century.
Part of the Cities of the Imagination series, this is an in-depth cultural, historical, and literary guide by a lifelong native to Scotland's vibrant capital and home to one of the world's greatest arts festivals.
It started and ended with a financial catastrophe. The Darien disaster of 1700 drove Scotland into union with England, but spawned the institutions which transformed Edinburgh into a global financial centre. The crash of 2008 wrecked the city's two largest and oldest banks – and its reputation. In the three intervening centuries, Edinburgh became a hothouse of financial innovation, prudent banking, reliable insurance and smart investing. The face of the city changed too as money transformed it from medieval squalor to Georgian elegance. This is the story, not just of the institutions which were respected worldwide, but of the personalities too, such as the two hard-drinking Presbyterian ministers who founded the first actuarially-based pension fund; Sir Walter Scott, who faced financial ruin, but wrote his way out of it; the men who financed American railways and eastern rubber plantations with Scottish money; and Fred Goodwin, notorious CEO of RBS, who took the bank to be the biggest in the world, but crashed and burned in 2008.
In the 780s northern Britain was dominated by two great kingdoms; Pictavia, centred in north-eastern Scotland and Northumbria which straddled the modern Anglo-Scottish border. Within a hundred years both of these kingdoms had been thrown into chaos by the onslaught of the Vikings and within two hundred years they had become distant memories. This book charts the transformation of the political landscape of northern Britain between the eighth and the eleventh centuries. Central to this narrative is the mysterious disappearance of the Picts and their language and the sudden rise to prominence of the Gaelic-speaking Scots who would replace them as the rulers of the North. From Pictland to Alba uses fragmentary sources which survive from this darkest period in Scottish history to guide the reader past the pitfalls which beset the unwary traveller in these dangerous times. Important sources are presented in full and their value as evidence is thoroughly explored and evaluated.
Tabbaa’s Transformation offers an innovative approach to understanding the profound changes undergone by Islamic art and architecture during the often neglected Medieval Islamic period. Examining devices such as calligraphy, arabesque, muqarnas, and stonework, Tabbaa argues we propagated in a moment of confrontation and facilitated the re-emergence of the Sunni Abbasid caliphate in a more orthodox image. Tabbaa offers a timely and thought-provoking alternative to conventional essentialist, positivist and ethno-narrative interpretations of Islamic art.
Between the deaths of the Emperors Julian (363) and Justinian (565), the Roman Empire underwent momentous changes. Most obviously, control of the west was lost to barbarian groups during the fifth century, and although parts were recovered by Justinian, the empire's centre of gravity shifted irrevocably to the east, with its focal point now the city of Constantinople. Equally important was the increasing dominance of Christianity not only in religious life, but also in politics, society and culture. Doug Lee charts these and other significant developments which contributed to the transformation of ancient Rome and its empire into Byzantium and the early medieval west. By emphasising the resilience of the east during late antiquity and the continuing vitality of urban life and the economy, this volume offers an alternative perspective to the traditional paradigm of decline and fall.
This is the first comprehensive history of the Scottish economy over the last three centuries to appear in a generation. Written by leading scholars in the field, it presents 'state of the art' research in an accessible style to all those interested in understanding the historical context of modern Scotland. Fresh interpretations are revealed on such key and controversial issues as the impact of the Union of 1707, the Clearances, the rise and fall of Scottish heavy industry and the recent transformation of the modern economy. The distinctive features of the Scottish economic system are stressed but these are also analysed within a British and international context. The focus of the volume is both broad and detailed with full treatment of agriculture, finance, industry and the service sector as well as the impact of momentous economic changes on the lives of the people and the massive new role in the twentieth century of the state in economic affairs. At a time of intense debate on the present and future condition of Scotland under a devolved parliament and executive, this book provides the essential background and the long-run perspectives on the challenges and opportunities facing the nation.
Shortlisted for the 2009 Saltire Society History Book of the Yea. rFrom Caledonia to Pictland examines the transformation of Iron Age northern Britain into a land of Christian kingdoms, long before 'Scotland' came into existence. Perched at the edge of the western Roman Empire, northern Britain was not unaffected by the experience, and became swept up in the great tide of processes which gave rise to the early medieval West. Like other places, the country experienced social and ethnic metamorphoses, Christianisation, and colonization by dislocated outsiders, but northern Britain also has its own unique story to tell in the first eight centuries AD.This book is the first detailed political history to treat these centuries as a single period, with due regard for Scotland's position in the bigger story of late Antique transition. From Caledonia to Pictland charts the complex and shadowy processes which saw the familiar Picts, Northumbrians, North Britons and Gaels of early Scottish history become established in the country, the achievements of their foremost political figures, and their ongoing links with the world around them. It is a story that has become much revised through changing trends in scholarly approaches to the challenging evidence, and that transformation too is explained for the benefit of students and general readers.
Renaissance Transformations: The Making of English Writing 1500-1650 asserts the centrality of historical understanding in shaping critical vision. This collection of distinctive new essays explores the dynamic cultural, intellectual and social processes that moulded literary writing in the Renaissance. Acutely attentive to the complexities that we confront in our attempts to understand the past, this book explores important relations among literary form, material and imaginative culture which compel our attention in the twenty-first century. Addressing three crucial areas at the forefront of current academic inquiry - 'Making Writing: Form, Rhetoric and Print Culture', 'Shaping Communities: Textual Spaces, Mapping History' and 'Embodying Change: Psychic and Somatic Performances' - this innovative, timely volume is of fundamental importance to all those who study and teach Renaissance literature, history and culture. Contributors are Danielle Clarke, Andrew Hadfield, Margaret Healy, Thomas Healy, Bernhard Klein, Michelle O'Callaghan, Neil Rhodes, Jennifer Richards Michael Schoenfeldt, William Sherman, Alan Stewart, and Susan Wiseman.