‘Eric Richards is a fluent, lucid writer’ – The Herald
‘required reading . . . not to be missed for its fearless and comprehensive grasp of the past and its relevance for today’
– Ileach
This is the first fully documented study for many years of one of Scotland’s most emotive subjects. It traces the origins of the Clearances from the eighteenth century to their culmination in the crofting legislation of the 1880s, showing how the process of clearance was part of a wider European movement of rural depopulation. Eric Richards describes the appalling conditions and treatment suffered by the Highland people, yet at the same time illustrates how difficult the choices were that faced even the most benevolent landlords in the face of rapid economic change.
The Clearances were the most rugged and painful of many attempted ‘solutions’ to the problem of those who maintain a population on marginal and infertile land. In drawing attention away from the mythology or the hard facts of what actually happened, this book offers a balanced analysis of events which created a terrible scar on the Highland and Gaelic imagination, the historical legacy of which still lies unresolved in the twenty-first century.
Eric Richards is Professor of History at Flinders University, Australia and previously taught at the University of Stirling, Scotland. His published work includes an acclaimed biography of Patrick Sellar, which was awarded the prize for Scottish History Book of the Year (1999) by the Saltire Society.
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