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A Survival Guide to Customs and Etiquette in Scotland

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The Protestant Reformation of the sixteenth century brought a radical shift from a profoundly sensual and ceremonial experience of religion to the dominance of the word through the Book and sermon. In Scotland, the revolution assumed proportions unequaled by any other national Calvinist Reformation. This book explores how such a dramatic shift was accomplished and what effect it had on the masses of people in the pew or in the alehouse.

Margo Todd draws on source material from the operations of "kirk sessions," the most local of the Calvinist church courts, which give details of varied aspects of daily life: baptism, marriage, and burial, poor relief and education, fasts and feasts, sexual offense, and doctrinal error. She shows how the kirk sessions balanced the exercise of discipline with social service to produce a distinctively Scottish Reformed culture in which traditional ritual and drama, propitiatory devices, and even imagery were not discarded but reconstructed in Protestant guise. ... Read more

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The revival of interest in historical Western martial arts has focused a great deal of attention on the weapons of Scotland, especially of the Highlanders. Yet, despite all this enthusiasm for the martial arts of the Highland, few of those practicing have experienced genuine Gaelic culture - and without a cultural context, no practice of martial arts can be considered complete.

Highland Martial Culture examines the nature of the Gaelic warrior class and its martial training; the Gaelic duel and how it differed from the duel in continental Europe; the phenomenon of wandering swordsmen in Highland society; the Highland conception of honor; internal aspects of martial arts practice such as mental tricks, traditional charms and spells used in warfare; unusual skills such as the fast draw; and health practices associated with the warrior class.

This is your chance to find out more about the rich cultural heritage associated with the practice of Highland weapons. ... Read more

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Another snapshot of traditional European warrior culture that anyone with a curiosity will love
The pride of traditional Scottish culture is strong, so strong that the potential confusion of accusations of wearing skirts won't deter them. "Highland Martial Culture: The Fighting Heritage of Scotland" looks into the martial history of Scotland. From the actual martial arts used by Scottish warriors, to the legends of men who combined steel and magic, to the diet and life of a Highlander, "Highland Martial Culture" is another snapshot of traditional European warrior culture that anyone with a curiosity will love.
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Intending Scotland reconsiders our understanding of the development of Scottish culture from the Enlightenment to the present day. The book recovers and reconnects Scottish thinkers from Hume and Reid in the eighteenth century, to Andrew Seth, Norman Kemp Smith and John Macmurray in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It contextualises their work in relation to the development of Scottish anthropology and psychology, from which emerged, in the work of Ian Suttie and R. D. Laing, some of the most significant challenges to Freudian psychology. Craig uses this Scottish tradition to challenge theories of the nation over the last thirty years, providing critiques of Bhabha's 'hybridity' and of Anderson's 'imagined community', and of theories of 'the Other' within a postcolonial framework. Ranging over Scotland's intellectual and cultural history across three centuries, taking in gardens and gardeners as well as historians and historiographers, scientists and engineers as well as philosophers and psychologists, Intending Scotland presents a reinterpretation of Scottish cultural life as radical as the developments in the nation's contemporary politics.Key debates addressed in Intending Scotland include: *Challenges negative conceptions of the Scottish cultural past and of the failures of Scotland's cultural development *Sets Scotland's recent political development in the context of its cultural achievements in the twentieth century *Deals with major figures in Scottish culture - Hume, Reid - and shows how our modern understanding of them is dependent on the work of later Scottish thinkers *Engages with prominent critics in contemporary theory - Anderson, Derrida, Bhabha, Kearney - and develops a critique of them from a Scottish perspective. ... Read more

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Culture Smart! provides essential information on attitudes, beliefs and behavior in different countries, ensuring that you arrive at your destination aware of basic manners, common courtesies, and sensitive issues. These concise guides tell you what to expect, how to behave, and how to establish a rapport with your hosts. This inside knowledge will enable you to steer clear of embarrassing gaffes and mistakes, feel confident in unfamiliar situations, and develop trust, friendships, and successful business relationships.

Culture Smart! offers illuminating insights into the culture and society of a particular country. It will help you to turn your visit-whether on business or for pleasure-into a memorable and enriching experience. Contents include:

* customs, values, and traditions
* historical, religious, and political background
* life at home
* leisure, social, and cultural life
* eating and drinking
* do's, don'ts, and taboos
* business practices
* communication, spoken and unspoken

"Culture Smart has come to the rescue of hapless travellers." Sunday Times Travel

"... the perfect introduction to the weird, wonderful and downright odd quirks and customs of various countries." Global Travel

"...full of fascinating-as well as common-sense-tips to help you avoid embarrassing faux pas." Observer

"...as useful as they are entertaining." Easyjet Magazine

"...offer glimpses into the psyche of a faraway world." New York Times ... Read more

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The relationship between science and civil society is essential to our understanding of cultural change during the Victorian era. Science was frequently packaged as an appropriate form of civic culture, inculcating virtues necessary for civic progress. In turn, civic culture was presented as an appropriate context for enabling and supporting scientific progress. Finnegan's study looks at the shifting nature of this process during the nineteenth century, using Scotland as the focus for his argument. Considerations of class, religion and gender are explored, illuminating changing social identities as public interest in science was allowed - even encouraged - beyond the environs of universities and elite metropolitan societies. ... Read more

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Sociologists and social historians discuss the subject of Scotland's evolution as a nation in cultural and sociological terms. They ask key questions, such as how meaningful is it to describe Scotland as a "nation"? Has Scotland developed along different lines from England, or do we over-emphasise the differences to explain current political divisions? To answer such questions the contributors look at the 19th century foundations of Scottish society - the social significance of key professionals, the ways women's sexual and social behaviour was controlled by the moral arbiters of the day - and argue that Scottish culture is healthy and distinct. The book ends with an analysis of sport, an issue central to Scotland's identity. It is published in association with the British Sociological Association. ... Read more

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A must read!
I highly recommend this book.It gives an in-depth, historical view of the Scots/English struggle for supremacy in Scotland's politics.I found the portions dealing with appeals to the Pope and the documents used to bolster the arguments particularly fascinating.I hope this text comes out in paperback to make it more affordable. ... Read more

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Nationalist movements in Scotland and Quebec are enjoying a resurgence. "Hierarchies of Belonging" explores the construction of national identity and nationalism and its effect on how citizens of Scotland and Quebec understand their relationship to the nation and the state. Ailsa Henderson analyses each nation's linguistic, racial, cultural, economic, and political diversity within a historical and contemporary context. Challenging the assumption that nationalism in Scotland can be characterized as "civic" in contrast to an "ethnic" model in Quebec, Henderson adopts a more complex model of national identity that distinguishes between nationalistic rhetoric, which is invariably civic in form, and public understandings of belonging, which tend to rely on ethnic markers. In "Hierarchies of Belonging" she demonstrates that nationalist rhetoric and a sense of belonging affect how citizens feel about the state, the nation, and each other. ... Read more

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This volume examines a period of profound change in Scottish cultural history, in which ideas of sovereignty, religion and national identity were all subject to change and redefinition. The eight essays focus on literature, festivities, documents and letters. ... Read more

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This volume contains twelve studies, all dealing with aspects of the literature and culture of Scotland during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Most of these contributions began life as papers delivered at an international conference on that subject, held at Rolduc Abbey, The Netherlands, in 2002. Much new light is shed on canonical Middle Scots writers: Alastair Fowler and David Parkinson, both on Gavin Douglas; David Moses on Robert Henryson; Ruben Valdes Miyares on William Dunbar. The essay by Rod Lyall, on the anonymous Three Prestis of Peblis, and that of Eleanor Commander, on the Originale Chronicle by Andrew Wyntoun, both illuminate unperceived aspects of well-known fifteenth-century texts. Both Janet Hadley Williams and Alan Swanson significantly advance our knowledge of the poet, Sir David Lyndsay. Women's contribution to culture is the subject of the essays by Marguerite Corporaal (on poetry by Queen Mary Stewart and by Mary Beaton) and of Marie-Claude Tucker (on the calligrapher Esther Inglis). In the area of Scottish Gaelic literature and culture, William Gillies explores the connections between a prose tale and poem on the topic of the land of the Little People. In the final study, Jamie Reid-Baxter contextualises and expounds a hitherto unknown Renaissance sonnet sequence, The Nyne Muses, by John Dykes. In each of the contributions in this volume rhetoric and reality loom large; royalty, the third term of the title, is the ever-present final parameter of culture in the Middle Ages and Renaissance. ... Read more

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Whether you're conducting business, traveling for pleasure, or even relocating abroad, one mistake with customs or etiquette can leave a bad taste in everyone's mouth. International travelers, now more than ever, are not just individuals from the United States, but ambassadors and impression makers for the country as a whole. Newly updated, redesigned, and resized for maximum shelf appeal for travelers of all ages, Culture Shock! country and city guides make up the most complete reference series for customs and etiquette you can find. These are not just travel guides; they are guides for a way of life. ... Read more

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An Excelent Overview of Scotland
I read this book in April of 2002 before going to Scotland for ten days on business and pleasure.Please pardon the lack of detail in this review, since it has been a year.It gave me a good foundation for understanding many aspects of Scottish society and history.I did not want to read a simple tourist reference guide about the attractions of Scotland-I desired to know more about the people and culture.It turned out to be a terrific book was for me.

Author, Jamie Grant, touches uses his "Guide to Customs and Etiquette" to describe history, stereotypes and the nature of the people, "fitting in", doing business, arts & entertainment, food & drink, the outdoors, The Highlands, and Do's and Don't.His humor makes helps to make an already interesting book fresh.

I HIGHLY recommend this book to anyone going to Scotland who wants to get a comprehensive overview of Scotland, especially if it is their first time.I learned a lot from it.

-EH ... Read more

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The focus of this study is court literature in early sixteenth-century England and Scotland. Author Jon Robinson examines courtly poetry and drama in the context of a complex system of entertainment, education, self-fashioning, dissimulation, propaganda and patronage. He places selected works under close critical scrutiny to explore the symbiotic relationship that existed between court literature and important socio-political, economic and national contexts of the period 1500 to 1540.The first two chapters discuss the pervasive influence of patronage upon court literature through an analysis of the panegyric verse that surrounded the coronation of Henry VIII. The rhetorical strategies adopted by courtiers within their literary works, however, differed, depending on whether the writer was, at the time of writing the verse or drama, excluded or included from the environs of the court. The different, often elaborate rhetorical strategies are, through close readings of selected verse, delineated and discussed in chapter three on David Lyndsay and chapter four on Thomas Wyatt and Thomas Elyot.Wyatt's integrity, his honest persona is, however, in chapter five, shown to have been a facade deliberately and adroitly crafted by the poet that allowed him to survive and flourish within a world of political intrigue at the Henrician court.Literature at times could be appropriated by the sovereign and specifically crafted on his behalf to further national and personal political objectives. The possibilities of this appropriation are explored in the final chapter through a scholarly informed imaginative analysis of the works of Buchanan, Dunbar and Wyatt. ... Read more

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During the later 16th and 17th centuries, Scotland's elite, divided by the Reformation and afflicted by political upheaval, found consolation, and sometimes inspiration, in the teachings of ancient philosophy. The neo-Stoicism with which they especially engaged was a versatile and cosmopolitan body of thought which had developed in response to chronic instability across Europe. Influenced by its ideas about public and private life, which were discussed in poetry and drama as well as in letters, meditations and extended scholarly treatises, they learned how to follow Stoic example - to prepare themselves for political duties, to confront the turbulence of their own world, and even to cultivate a justifiable retirement in the face of its irrational and uncontrollable furies. Examining figures as diverse as Buchanan, Drummond of Hawthornden, Hume of Godscroft, Gordon of Gordonstoun, the Marquis of Montrose, Alexander Ross, Robert Leighton and Sir George Mackenzie, this study traces the attempt made to educate Scots to transpose Roman morality onto early-modern society, providig at the same time an insight into the mental outlook and cultural horizons of the later Stuart elite. ... Read more

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