Winner of Saltire Scottish History Book of the Year They would be better dead, they said, than set adrift upon the world. But set adrift they were - thousands of them, their communities destroyed, their homes demolished and burned. Such were the Sutherland Clearances, an extraordinary episode, involving the deliberate depopulation of much of a Scottish county. What was done in the course of that episode was planned and carried out by a small group of men and one woman. Most of those involved wrote a great deal about their actions, intentions and feelings, and much of it has been preserved. There are no equivalent collections of material from those whose communities ceased to exist. Their feelings and fears are harder to access, but they are by no means irrecoverable. In this book James Hunter tells the story of the Sutherland Clearances. His researches took him to archives in Scotland, England and Canada, to the now deserted straths of Sutherland, to the frozen shores of Hudson Bay. The result is a gripping, moving, definitive account of a people's struggle for survival in the face of tragedy and disaster which includes experiences which have not featured in any previous such account.

By the author of An Abridged History, “a detailed examination of an overlooked chapter in Scotland’s transport history” (The Scotsman). In the 1890s, the people of north-west Scotland grew tired of Government Commissions sent to consider a railway to Ullapool. Despite rock-solid arguments in favor of such a railway, neither government nor the big railway companies lifted a finger to build one. Against the recommendations of its own advisers, the Scottish Office dismissed the project as “a quite impossible proposal.” This book tells the whole sorry tale of the attempt to improve transportation in the north-west Highlands and the resulting government inquiries, set against the region’s economic and social problems and civil unrest in the crofting communities. Stories, facts and figures have been unearthed from the archives of government departments and railway companies, from local people’s letters and petitions, from contemporary newspapers and from the plans prepared for the hoped-for railways. Other unbuilt railways to the north-west coast are also described. But this story is not just about planned railways that were never built. It is about the frustrations of the people of the Highlands in the face of government incompetence, railway-company obstructionism, local rivalries and the struggle against the historical injustice of land ownership. “Delves deep into the archives to reveal an astonishing story of establishment incompetence and indifference—and some west coast skullduggery—contriving to thwart the energy and enthusiasm of locals keen to share in the benefits which railways had brought to other Highland communities.” —RailScot

This ground breaking and original book conjures up an increasingly lost way of life: that of the sheep farmers of the far north of Scotland - their work, lives, families and how these changed over two hundred years. The book makes an enormous contribution to our understanding of a long neglected facet of Highland history. It does so in the most accessible way: through the long history of one family - the Clarkes - in one place - Eriboll - but which speaks for many.The history and voice of sheep farmers has long been ignored in the past, to the peril of current and future farming. As the author demonstrates his knowledge and understanding of the land and how it must be managed, we might all benefit from listening to this point of view and approaching the key asset of the north - the land - with more respect than has hitherto been shown.