THE TITLE IS a misnomer. Scotland has never had an empire. (Nor of course has England, not since 1707 anyway.) Professor Devine knows this perfectly well. I dare say the eye-catching title was foisted on him by his publishers to make clearer what the book evidently is – a companion volume to his excellent history, The Scottish Nation 1700-2000 – than a more accurate title such as ‘The Role of the Scots in the British Empire’ would have done.

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