Recovering Scottish History

Reviews / Votes

This book is a major contribution to a central theatre of debate in Scottish studies, and has ramifications well beyond Hill Burton's oeuvre or nineteenth-century Scotland more generally. ... There is so much to applaud here in a rich and cogently argued book, which leaves some influential lines of interpretation looking threadbare and exposed. -- Colin Kidd, University of St Andrews * The English Historical Review * Recovering Scottish History makes a compelling case for the necessity of reassessing John Hill Burton's standing among nineteenth-century Scottish historians. Not merely a study of Romantic and Victorian thought, Beveridge's engaging book invites us to consider the ways in which shifting trends in historiography impact on the present. * Assessment for Short Listing as Saltire Society Research Book of the Year 2022 * Beveridge has written a compelling and important book, ingeniously and reflexively designed as a work of history about a landmark work of history. This is vital reading for anyone wishing to understand the permutations of national or, for that matter, unionist history in Scotland. * Matthew Wickman, Professor of English, Brigham Young University * Beveridge's achievement in this volume is to be warmly commended. He has made a clear and convincing case for the critical study of [... Scottish] Victorian histories in much the same way as William Donaldson made the case for a new appraisal of popular literature in Scotland in the 1980s. It is up to historians and students to make good the promise that Beveridge highlights here and to make visible the contribution of historians to our national life - even if we still refuse to burnish them in gold. -- Catriona M. M. Macdonald * Scottish Literary Review * A valuable intervention in Scottish studies, Craig Beveridge's study of the forgotten historian John Hill Burton makes a bold claim for reviving Burton's reputation as a key player in nineteenth-century Scottish national identity formation, offering new contexts from which to positively assess his place in Scottish historical studies. -- Professor David Finkelstein, author of The House of Blackwood: Author-Publisher Relations in the Victorian Era Beveridge presents convincing evidence of Burton's influence on a dynamic nineteenth-century Scottish national consciousness throughout the nine chapters of this zeitgeist book. ... Beyond a fascinating biographical view of a lesser-known Scottish historian, this book offers an intriguing way forward for future research on the cultural and intellectual identity of nineteenth-century Scotland. -- Charles Bradford Bow, University of Aberdeen * Scottish Historical Review * impressive and important ... takes an overlooked historian and accords him a deserved place of honor in Scotland's intellectual pantheon. -- Richard Marsden * Victorian Studies *