This is the first book to take a comprehensive view of the historical geography of Scotland since the Union. The period is divided into sections separated by the Napoleonic Wars and the First World War, and each section offers a general view followed by detailed studies giving a balanced coverage of regional and urban-rural criteria, and the economic infrastructure. The book contains a number of original researches and Dr Turnock attempts to set the Scottish experience in a framework of general ideas on modernisation.

The Glasites or Sandemanians were a branch of the church with their roots in Scotland, but who spread much wider. This study seeks to explore their distinctives, both of theology and practice, and to place them in a wider context. The examination of a small sect serves to illuminate the wider story, and this particular community nurtured within it several eminent thinkers whose influence has been of deep importance—not the least, the scientific pioneer Michael Faraday. In exploring both their growth and their decline, the author seeks to convey something of the flavor of this part of the church and to consider what their legacy is.