Reveals the Scottish Highlands as a dynamic and intellectual region in the century before Culloden Challenges the assumption that the Highlands comprised a vacuum, sealed off from the rest of Scotland and the world beyond prior to the eighteenth century Situates Fraser within his locality, his region, country, archipelago and continent in a way unparalleled by any other contemporary example Examines the self-presentation and self-curation of an energetic, curious, mobile Gaelic-speaking man This book studies the revealing autobiographical sources left by Rev. James Fraser of Kirkhill (1634 1709), a Gaelic-speaking scholar, traveller and minister. It examines Fraser's self-presentation and situates him within his locality, Scotland, the British Isles and Europe, also incorporating recent historiography to provide a more comprehensive presentation of the social, economic and cultural trajectories of the early modern Highlands. David Worthington focuses on the Scottish Highlands' strong engagement with Europe and early entanglement with empire. He challenges the assumption that the north Highlands, in particular, was sealed off from the rest of the world before Culloden and he identifies the agency, vitality and resilience of the people of the Highlands prior to the peripheralisation, depopulation and under-development that then occurred.

About the Author
David Worthington is Professor of Scottish History and the Head of the Centre for History at UHI, Scotland. He is the author of British and Irish Experiences and Impressions of Central Europe, 1560-1688 (Ashgate: Aldershot, 2012) and Scots in Habsburg Service, 1618-1648 (Brill: Leiden, 2003). He is also editor of The New Coastal History: Cultural and Environmental Perspectives from Scotland and Beyond (Palgrave MacMillan: London, 2017) and British and Irish Emigrants and Exiles in Europe, 1603-1688 (Brill: Leiden, 2009).

Reviews
"Out of the seventeenth-century Highlands, often thought a place apart, steps a determinedly cosmopolitan individual. David Worthington's study of James Fraser Gael, linguist, scientist, historian, continent-wide traveller and locally rooted parish minister is a masterly portrayal of a well lived and productive Highland life." -James Hunter, University of the Highlands and Islands



Book Information
ISBN 9781399501279
Author David Worthington
Format Hardback
Page Count 248
Imprint Edinburgh University Press
Publisher Edinburgh University Press