Scotland, Empire and Decolonisation in the Twentieth Century

This volume represents one of the first attempts to examine the connection between Scotland and the British empire throughout the entire twentieth century. As the century dawned, the Scottish economy was still strongly connected with imperial infrastructures - such as railways, engineering, construction and shipping - and colonial trade and investment. By the end of the century, however, the Scottish economy, its politics and its society had been through major upheavals, which many connected with decolonisation. As the British Empire moved into its final phase during the mid-twentieth century, the speed of economic change, military activity and the formulation of ideas - and their political effects - accelerated. These were reflected in press reactions to imperial events, and in the image and status of a military embroiled in the campaigns of the 'imperial end game'. This book also details the concluding acts of migratory activity, the effects on identity formations (both at home and in the empire itself), the re-evaluation of Scottish heroic figures and approaches to Scottish politics. Moreover, although it is often thought that the British underwent few of the traumas of decolonisation experienced, for example, by the French, this book shows that the end of empire still influenced events at home - even in ways that prove quite different from those expected. The chapters within this volume, written by a group of distinguished scholars, represent ground-breaking research on Scotland's complex and often-changing relationship with the British Empire in the period. The introduction that opens the collection will be viewed for years to come as the single-most important historiographical statement on Scotland and empire during the tumultuous years of the twentieth century.