This new edition of Michael Fry's remarkable book charts the involvement of the Scots in the British empire from its earliest days to the end of the twentieth century. It is a tale of dramatic extremes and craggy characters and of a huge range of concerns - from education, evangelism and philanthropy to spying, swindling and drug running. Stories of Scottish regiments on the rampage, cannibalism and other atrocities are contrasted with the deeds of heroic pioneers such as David Livingstone and Mary Slessor. Above all it tells how the British empire came to be dominated and run by the Scots, and how it truly became a Scottish empire. As the empire transformed Scotland beyond recognition, so was the Empire shaped by the Scots - a remarkable achievement from the population of so small a country, which was itself neither nation nor fully province, neither fully colonizer nor fully colonized. Michael Fry's energetic and colourful account is one of the classics of modern Scottish history.

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Foreword
• Illustrations
• Maps
• Chronology
• Introduction
• PART ONE. A COMMERCIAL EMPIRE
• 1. ‘The special friendship’: Ireland
• 2. ‘The key of the universe’: Darien
• 3. ‘Nobody wishes us well’: The European Context
• 4. ‘The true interest of a country’: The Scottish Debate
• 5. ‘A nation no longer’: America
• 6. ‘The greater barbarians’: The West Indies
• 7. ‘Compassion for fallen greatness’: India
• 8. ‘In true highland style’: Canada
• 9. ‘Thriving in the produce of flocks’: Australia
• 10. ‘Occasional scenes of the broadest farce’: The Mediterranean
• PART TWO. A CHRISTIAN EMPIRE
• 11. ‘Scattering the seeds of civilisation’: South Africa
• 12. ‘Commerce and Christianity’: David Livingstone
• 13. ‘The voice of Scotland’: Central Africa
• 14. ‘An incipient civilisation’: West Africa
• 15. ‘Into the Stygian pool’: India, the Religious Mission
• 16. ‘I have sinned’: India, the Secular Mission
• 17. ‘We are too Scotch’: Canada
• 18. ‘Bothwell Brig faces’: Australasia
• 19. ‘The true art of the missionary’: Oceania
• 20. ‘Fitted to pollute public sentiment’: The Scottish Debate
• PART THREE. A CONTESTED EMPIRE
• 21. ‘Using the safe and small’: Imperial Economics
• 22. ‘Les peuples de second rang’: The European Context
• 23. ‘The most proper persons for this country’: Canada
• 24. ‘Our principal reliance is on opium’: China
• 25. ‘A huge military despotism’: India
• 26. ‘Thank God we are all Scots here’: East Africa
• 27. ‘A kind of celestial Scotland’: South Africa
• 28. ‘A movement among the Celtic elements’: Imperial Politics
• PART FOUR. A CRUMBLING EMPIRE
• 29. ‘A mother state’: Imperial Politics
• 30. ‘A national home for the Jewish people’: Palestine
• 31. ‘On the look out for some stigma’: African Colonisation
• 32. ‘Someone must speak for them’: African Decolonisation
• 33. ‘The oracle is dumb’: India
• 34. ‘As loyal as the Highlanders’: China
• 35. ‘Lying in the centre of trade’: Malaysia
• 36. ‘A kingdom of the mind’: Canada
• 37. ‘Traitors to Scotland’: Imperial Economics
• 38. ‘Not solely Scottish’: The End of Empire
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index