The Scottish State and the Experience of Government, c. 1560-1707
Essays in Honour of Julian Goodare
Alasdair Raffe editor Martha McGill editor
Format:Hardback
Publisher:Edinburgh University Press
Published:30th Jun '25
Should be back in stock very soon
This volume examines the development of Scotland’s institutions of government in the early modern period, and considers how local and central authorities affected the lives of the Scottish people. In the book’s first part, contributors provide up-to-date studies of initiatives to reform, define and reimagine the Scottish state. The essays discuss changes in the privy council, parliament and administration, and assess political and constitutional ideas. The book’s second part explores how Scots experienced government. Contributors consider the material culture of state power and the actions of local courts and officials. Essays reconstruct the perspectives of criminals and religious dissenters, as well as participants in debt litigation and slander suits. Several chapters attend to the role of governing bodies in the Scottish witch-hunts. The essays respond to major themes in the work of Julian Goodare, who retired as Professor of History at the University of Edinburgh in 2021.
What is the early modern state? What does it do, why, how, and to whom? The present essays, reflecting the scholarly work of Julian Goodare, illuminate many aspects of the state, from notables directing ‘high politics’ to those such as debtors, criminals and witches at the receiving end. -- Alasdair A. MacDonald, University of Groningen in the Netherlands
Julian Goodare has done more than anyone to redefine and anatomize power in early modern Scotland. Who benefited, profited or suffered from the consolidation, recasting and paradoxical diffusion of the state between c. 1550 and 1707? The answers given here by 14 scholars are wide ranging, complex, sometimes contradictory but deeply significant. -- Michael Lynch, Professor Emeritus, University of Edinburgh
The best festschrifts combine essays that celebrate the range of interests of the individual being honoured with new research that extends those interests into new and unexplored directions. This collection is a case in point. It demonstrates the vitality of the history of ‘the state’ and ‘government’ in Scotland over such a dynamic period. This is a book for all libraries to hold and for all students of history to read. -- Alastair Mann, University of Stirling
ISBN: 9781399526708
Dimensions: unknown
Weight: unknown
352 pages