The Highland Clearances

This is a story that had to be told, and has to be retold. Any visit to the Scottish highlands today will still reveal the abandoned and broken houses dotted around the landscape - many will think this the march of time or the depredations of the red coats following the disaster at Culloden moor - and to some extend it was both, but as this superbly researched book shows, even more sickeningly, that this was caused deliberately by the landowners themselves, many of them Scottish, many with historic clan titles, and with centuries of obligations to their clan, their children.Rents were low and obligations high -the very basis of the clan system, but sheep, and later deer hunting, provided much better income, and less trouble than human tenants, following the deliberate destruction of the clan system after the failure of the '45.The former system of tenantry was deliberately dismantled on the orders of these landlords, the homes burned and pulled down , the people evicted and forced to scratch the barest living on the coast or forced to emigrate, often to Canada, to make way for the profitable sheep.This all makes for very sad and horrifying reading. This book is not the easiest read, both because of the horrifying story it tells so well, but also because the writing style is little ponderous at times. Nonetheless, this is essential reading if you have an interest in the history of Scotland and its people.

The upper classes ensuring that their life is lived the way they want it to be - and never mind anyone (if they are not of their class) else...

John Prebble has a way of distilling dry historical facts and presenting them to the reader in a very easy to read way. Fascinating subject matter and you have to feel sympathy for those hundreds and thousands of Scottish highlanders who were uprooted during one of Scotland's more shameful periods in history. Those driving the process claimed it was all done in the name of "improvement" but their motives were clearly entirely less philanthropic and a huge amount of suffering resulted.

I ordered this book but it did not arrive in The Netherlands. Thanks to "World of books" it was replaced. I had very good contact with them, thumbs up for service

Great author, great historical book