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In advance of a trip to Scotland, I have been immersing myself in volumes of history about it, and I am comparing this fine volume by J.D. Mackie with that edited by Jenny Wormald, 'Scotland: A History', both in kindle format. Mackie's is evidently a great achievement — an entire history of Scotland written by a single person, rather than the collection of chapter contributions that forms 'Scotland: A History'. Mackie's style is enjoyable readable (if ever so slightly dated) and there are no sudden changes of gear, as sometimes strikes one in 'Scotland: A History'.

Both are roughly the same size in terms of page count, but 'A History of Scotland' in a sense covers less but more deeply: it stops in the 1970s ('Scotland: A History' stops 30 years later) and contains only history (unlike the two thematic chapters — one, on the Scottish diaspora, rather thin in terms of content and the other, on Scottish literature, too specialised for a generalist volume of this kind — in 'Scotland: A History). 'A History of Scotland' also, to my mind, contains much better coverage of the earliest periods of Scottish history including the period before the Roman conquest of Britain (i.e. the period that includes the Pictish civilisation) and the medieval period. Also very fine is the section on the religious turmoil of the 16th and 17th centuries. Both books start to lose focus to some extent in the 19th and 20th centuries, as though not quite enough time has elapsed even yet to see the events of those periods in their proper contexts. Mackie's volume is also largely arranged around the central figures of monarchs, and this approach leaves him in a bind when Scottish monarchs become less Scottish than British or, dare I say, English monarchs. His focus on 'great men', typical of history in his time, also squeezes out narratives favoured by the 'New History', and one learns reasonably little about 'ordinary' people.

Covering the entirety of Scottish history to 1970 in 400-odd pages must have been an unenviable task, and Mackie's work does suffer, as other reviewers have mentioned, both from a certain sameness imparted by briskly dashing through history and a certain reluctance to set context up properly. I often found myself wondering exactly who X was, only to find that that was expected knowledge or had been introduced a few pages earlier by name but without much context.

I'm not sure who the intended audience for this volume might have been, but it is reasonably clear that a lot of prior knowledge is expected, both of geography and of (at least in the context of Scottish history) significant players and events in history. Mackie will frequently refer to something without further explanation in the expectation that you know because of shared culture or history who or what he means. This should be no impediment to the enquiring foreigner: just expect to have wikipedia at hand to fill in a few blanks, and a decent map at your side. I have already started reading other books on select topics that drew my attention — the Picts and Bonnie Prince Charlie among them.

If you want a decent, well-written single volume of Scottish history, this is clearly it. I stand readier to visit Scotland for having read it.

You know those parts of the bible where so-and-so begot so-and-so who begot so-and-so? This book reads very much like that through the first 200 pages. It gets better, but overall, I have found this book to be a slow, laborious read heavy on names and light on what the people with those names actually did. Sure, so-and-so-1 marched on [insert burgh] and was repulsed by so-and-so-2 who later was killed fighting son-of-so-and-so-1, but I'd also like to know at least a little about the personality or the motivations or even just the normal occupations of those so-and-sos.

I'll put this another way. It's like reading a book about farming that was written by someone describing how the farm looks from an airplane at 30,000 feet. You get nicely outlined plots that rotate with the seasons, but none of the real struggles, turmoils or story of what the life of those plots entails.

If you want to read this book as a way to find out the History of Scotland, skip along to something else. If you want to use it as a reference to discover who you should explore next time you want to read about Scotland and her people, buy it. You'll basically have a genealogy of the country.

Obviously this is a vanity read for me. I love to learn more about the roots of Scottish civilization. This book is quite a love-letter to the land of St. Andrew and the Dragon. If you have an interest in the timeline from the early formation of the kingdom competing with the British Crown through modernity, this is an excellent read. A great deal of it discusses the evolution of industry, or politics and the educational system, and the shifting sets of alliances among the various Scottish leaders and clans with the French, the British and the Spaniards. A recommended read.

One of the best histories I have yet read. And helped tie together part of my family.

I am a British history buff especially Scotland. If you are also, this is one of the books for you. Great historical facts about Scotland.

Very thorough yet conversational recounting of a complex nation's history. I would definitely recommend this book to anyone doing research on the topic.

history reads as if it were written for Scotchmen exclusively. Not enough bio data on figures that are introduced so there is no grounding .....also, I never fail to marvel at how many histories invariably allude to their first settlers encountering the "indigenous" people. Who are these people and how did they get there? How much of what they were transferred culturally? Geography tells us much about behaviour but is rarely considered when compiling pre-histories.

Kind of a hard read at first. Really hard to get into.