David S Forsyth

Separating the Sheep from the Men

The Scottish Clearances: A History of the Dispossessed, 1600–1900

By

Allen Lane 464pp £25 order from our bookshop

With the publication of The Scottish Clearances, T M Devine’s highly acclaimed Scottish history trilogy becomes a quartet. In this new book, he turns his forensic eye to one of the more contentious and resonant themes in modern Scottish historical studies: the clearances of the 18th and 19th centuries, which saw the large-scale eviction of poor subsistence farmers by landowners eager to put the land on which they lived to more profitable use.

Sign Up to our newsletter

Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.

Follow Literary Review on Twitter

  • Last Tweets

    • 'One of the reasons for its longevity is that it has virtually nothing to say about science and technology at all,… ,
    • 'The characters in many of these stories are trapped in the obsessive present tense of their own thoughts; in the m… ,
    • 'Libraries, for much of their existence, have embodied in microcosm many of the characteristics of the totalitarian… ,
    • 'Moss and Cynthia buy several properties through which to launder their ill-gotten gains, take lots of drugs, have… ,
    • 'Never mind the imperial cult. This is the cult of Boris. What happened to Rome?' From the LR archive:… ,
    • Thirty-two years ago this month, we published Muriel Spark's short story, 'A Playhouse Called Remarkable' Read it… ,
    • Time travel, bicycles and white horses populate @WomackPhilip's roundup of children's books by @marcussedgwick,… ,
    Follow Us