The Scots: A Photohistory

A selection of Book-of-the-Month Club

In the decade after 1839, when Louis Daguerre revealed his photographic process to the world, Scotland became enamored of the new art. Over the next century, Scottish photographers captured a stunning visual record of their land and its people, their mixed fortunes, hopes, and aspirations. Their achievementsnever before collected together so tellinglydocument a century of profound contrasts, of division, upheaval, and change that recast forever the character of Scotland. Here are the triumphs of self-confident Scotlandthe completion of the Forth Bridge and the stream of vessels that slid down the slipways of the Clyde to bind together a far-flung empirebut also its injustices, the story of the urban and rural poor, and the evictions that drove people from the land to seek work in the cities or renewed hope in emigration to the New World. Scotland has always been the country of the "lad o' pairts," the youth from the unpromising, impoverished, often rural background who, with the help of parental self-sacrifice and ambition, personal determination and strength of character, progressesoften as an emigrant to North Americato great things. Gordon Highlanders drinking whisky from enamel buckets in the New Year celebrations of 1890; the caves of Staffa and their associations with the mythical Celtic hero, Finigal; the grandeur of Edinburgh Castle; a portrait of John Logie Baird, Scottish scientist-hero and inventor of the television; the golfers of Scotscraig a mere decade after the beginning of photography; settlers overseas in Colorado; salmon-netting on the River Oykelthis enthralling visual history brings the country to life not only for everyone of Scottish origin, but equally for everyone who has enjoyed the rich character and landscape of this beguiling nation. 236 illustrations in color and duotone.