'Fascinating and wide ranging' Review: Global Migrations. The Scottish Diaspora Since 1600

Edinburgh University Press, £70

Review by Jonathan Wright

THIS fascinating volume is offered as a tribute to Sir Tom Devine. "No Scottish historian," writes John MacKenzie, "has ever had as prominent a profile " and Devine's influence, both within and far beyond the academy, has ensured his "dominance in Scottish historical studies." It seems entirely appropriate that such a festschrift should be devoted to one of Devine's scholarly obsessions and the great man will hopefully be delighted with the quality of work on display.

The precise numbers are hard to pin down, but the volume's editors assert that "an estimated 3.6 million Scots have left their homeland" since the 17th century. This extraordinary migratory phenomenon has become something of an academic growth industry over recent decades but answers to some of the most fundamental questions remain elusive: what was the motivation behind the exodus?; how was Scottish culture transplanted around the globe?; what was the impact on the folks back home?

A reliable lodestone when tackling such complex issues is to avoid generalisation or caricature. Pleasingly, the book follows precisely that strategy. It is reasonable to ponder what made Scotland distinctive in a given era but vague talk of "Scottishness" is far from helpful, regardless of whether the ascribed characteristics are positive or negative. This is not to deny that a migrant's origins could have a defining impact on his deeds overseas. Angela McCarthy argues convincingly that the pioneer of Ceylon's tea industry, James Taylor, was profoundly influenced by his Scottish education and his nation's agricultural and technological developments but such analyses are best conducted on this individual level, with happenstance duly factored in. Cultural essentialism, by contrast, is a perilous enterprise.

So, too, is any attempt to romanticise the diaspora. There were many tales of courage and fortitude through the centuries, but less edifying moments were far from uncommon. "When it came to violent acts of dispossession" or "highly disruptive suppression of resistance," John MacKenzie's chapter on Africa reminds us, "Scots were no different from other colonialists."

In North America, Colin Calloway writes, "Scottish colonial governors, soldiers, traders and settlers were probably as likely as their English or American counterparts to exploit, shoot, cheat and dispossess indigenous peoples."

Thankfully, though, they sometimes acted with decency, recognising that co-operation was the best way to keep the peace. As Calloway continues, ties of trade and marriage and the "enduring presence of Scots and their descendants" go some way towards explaining why, when the potato crop failed in the 1840s Highlands, the Cherokee Nation expressed "generosity and sympathy for people 4000 miles away."

This top-notch collection questions its share of assumptions, notably the idea that everyone took to the seas because of poverty when, in fact, "most Scots who migrated did so to pursue new opportunities rather than escape oppression." The methodological scope is equally impressive.

Andrew Mackillop deploys a sophisticated cost-benefit analysis of migration between 1600 and 1800 to determine how much was gained and lost by the homeland: he wisely moves beyond material wealth to incorporate human and cultural capital. With rather more quirkiness, David Alston turns to the tools of psychology and behavioural economics to explain why so many Highlanders were willing to travel to Guyana despite the risks to their health.

The volume's bench of contributors (from the UK, the US, Australia and New Zealand) has a pleasingly global complexion, and the range of subjects covered certainly makes for a compelling read: everything from the phenomenon of "roots tourism" to female pipe bands in far-flung corners of the world, via the "affinity Scots" whose "play-acting subculture" involves people across North-Western Europe dressing up, playing games, and creating a dreamscape of "kilts, Celts, clans, tartans and bagpipes."

Even the bald statistics are good fun. Iain Watson quizzed a sample of migrants and their descendants in New Zealand and Hong Kong to determine how they conceptualised Scotland. The cultural markers and historical events they mentioned are often predictable (landscapes or dancing, Wallace or Flodden) and sometimes disappointing (hardly anyone in New Zealand appears to have heard of the Scottish Enlightenment) but there's a pleasant surprise for Tom Devine. In the league table of "historical" authors read in the two locations, he can't compete with Walter Scott (almost four in ten respondents had enjoyed one of the historical novels) but he scores a very respectable thirteen percent. That's pretty good going for a serious historian and eight points ahead of the estimable Christopher Smout. The Historiographer Royal won't mind a bit: Smout writes in these pages of Devine's "drive and originalty" and concludes that "no-one deserved academic stardom more."

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To purchase your copy of Global Migrations for £35 (RRP £70) visit www.edinburghuniversitypress.com and quote the discount code GLOBAL16 at the checkout. Offer valid until the 31st August 2016; does not include P&P.